Israeli official calls for expelling Arabs to Switzerland

By AbdelRaouf Arnaout
JERUSALEM (AA) – A senior Israeli official on Tuesday called for expelling Arabs by train to Switzerland, inviting a storm of condemnations.

“If there were a button you could press that would make all the Arabs disappear, that would send them on an express train to Switzerland — may they live amazing lives there, I wish them all the best in the world — I would press that button,” Deputy Religious Affairs Minister Matan Kahana said in statements cited by the Israeli Broadcast Corporation.

“There is no such button [...] apparently we were destined to exist here [together] on this land in some form,” he added while speaking to students in a high school in the settlement of Efrat in the occupied West Bank.

"There are those who think that if we go back to the 1967 borders, there will be two states here that will live in peace with each other [...] I think it is nonsense,” he said.

Kahana later tweeted that Jewish and Arab populations “must work to live in coexistence.”

“Our coalition is a courageous step towards this goal within this larger discussion, a few of my statements were worded poorly,” he added.

His remarks, however, drew fire from Arab Knesset member Ahmad Tibi, who wrote on Twitter: "There is a button that expels you from the government and the Knesset; I will press it soon."

According to the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation, Kahana later phoned Tibi and apologized to him over his remarks.

*Writing by Bassel Barakat