Deputy Religious Affairs Minister Matan Kahana was criticized Monday for saying that if he could push a button to "send Arabs to Switzerland", he would.
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Deputy Religious Services Minister Matan Kahana made the remarks to high school students in a Judea and Samaria settlement. In his comments, which were caught on video, he was explaining his view that clashing narratives between Israelis and Palestinians were a major obstacle to peace. He appeared to be making the point that Israelis and Palestinians had no choice but to find a way to live together.
"If there was a button I could press that would take all the Arabs and put them on a train to Switzerland, I would. A button like that does not exist," the politician was quoted as saying.
Kahana is part of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's nationalist Yamina party which anchors a coalition of eight ideologically diverse parties, including for the first time in Israeli history an Arab Islamist faction called Ra'am.
Several Arab-Israeli lawmakers expressed their frustration over Kahana's remarks on Twitter after a video of his speech circulated on social media.
"Matan Kahana, we are here because this is our homeland. You, and others who think like you, can continue to wallow in your frustrations because we will not disappear!" Waleed Taha of Ra'am tweeted.
"This was a terrible statement, it's a shame it was said," Strategic Planning Minister in the Prime Minister's Office Eli Avidar tweeted. "Israeli Arabs are here and they are here to stay. We need to be done with stances like these."
Mossi Raz, a member of the Meretz party, wrote, "No one is leaving, not to Switzerland and not to anywhere else, we are staying here together to build a democratic and equal society."
After the uproar, Kahana posted on Twitter that some of the remarks within his speech were "worded poorly."
"I referenced that both Jewish and Arab populations aren't going anywhere. As such, we must work to live in coexistence. Our coalition is a courageous step towards this goal."
i24NEWS contributed to this report.
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