Prime Minister Naftali Bennett clashed with CNN's Christiane Amanpour in an interview with the news channel Wednesday.
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Asked by Amanpour to respond to Israel Defense Forces' Central Command head Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fuchs' remark that he was concerned by "settler terrorism," Bennett said: "What you've been projecting is blatantly false. It's a lie, simply a lie."
He said, "... You're misrepresenting the facts…" Noting a tiny minority of settlers had engaged in violence against Palestinians, Bennett said, "I object [to] the symmetry that you're trying to create here."
The prime minister said that of the several hundred thousand Israelis living in Judea and Samaria, "there are several hundred, perhaps even less, who've applied violence from time to time. But who's getting murdered? We're seeing Palestinians murder Israelis. We're not seeing Israelis murdering Palestinians, and that's why there's no symmetry here."
In response to Amanpour's remark that "the West Bank has been occupied since 1967, settlers are allowed to be there ... They are there and they are violent this minority, and it is generally deemed illegal by the rest of the world," Bennett said
Video: CNN / Screenshot
He continued: "I get it. No one's going anywhere. We have to figure out how to live together. That's my job. To provide security for Israelis, dignity for Palestinians. I'm working on that very hard, and we're succeeding.
"What you've been projecting is blatantly false," Bennett said. "I object to the symmetry you're trying to create here ... Who's getting murdered? We're not seeing Israelis murdering Palestinians."
"I also object – these are not occupied territories, these are territories in dispute and we have claim to our own place as well as them - I get it, no one's going anywhere, we have to figure out how to live together."
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