By IANS,
Jerusalem: Israel’s Economy Minister Naftali Bennett Wednesday apologised to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for criticising a plan to have settlers living under Palestinian sovereignty, local media reported.
“Placing Palestinian sovereignty over Israeli citizen is dangerous, and it was my duty to shoot down the idea from the agenda immediately,” Bennett said.
Bennett, the leader of the far-right Jewish Home party, apologized at an educational conference Wednesday evening, after warning from the prime minister’s office earlier in the day that he will be fired if he won’t apologied, Xinhua reported.
“If the prime minister was hurt, I am certainly sorry about that. I respect Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his leadership under difficult conditions, support him when needed and criticize when necessary and that is my duty,” a daily courted him as saying.
“There are elements trying to turn a substantive debate over the future of our security and our land into a personal attack that didn’t happen,” he added.
The tensions started Sunday, as a report surfaced about a possible idea to have Jewish settlers live in territories annexed by Israel in the West Bank and east Jerusalem during the 1967 Mideast War, live under Palestinian rule amid the planned establishment of a future Palestinian state.
Bennett harshly criticised the idea while personally attacking the prime minister for bringing it up.