Mexico’s government rebuked Saturday the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a tweet applauding U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to build a border wall with Mexico to keep out immigrants.
Netanyahu said on Twitter earlier on Saturday: “President Trump is right. I built a wall along Israel’s southern border. It stopped all illegal immigration. Great success. Great idea.”
The comment was swiftly rejected by leaders of the Jewish community in Mexico and prompted an unusually blunt statement from Mexico’s foreign ministry.
“The Foreign Ministry expressed to the government of Israel via its ambassador in Mexico its profound astonishment rejection and disappointment over Prime Minister Netanyahu’s message on Twitter about the construction of a border wall” the ministry’s statement read.
The Central Committee of the Jewish Community in Mexico issued a statement saying it “forcefully rejected” Netanyahu’s comment while several prominent Mexicans of Jewish origin sharply criticized the Israeli leader on Twitter.
Mexico’s government and Trump have been locked in a bitter dispute over his election campaign promise to build a wall on the U.S. southern border that he says Mexico will pay for. Mexico has repeatedly said it will not pay for the wall.
