Bezalel Smotrich walks back racist comments about Saudi Arabia

Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Thursday walked back racist comments about Saudi Arabia following condemnation.

"My statement regarding Saudi Arabia was unfortunate, and I regret any offence it may have caused," Smotrich said in a video statement he posted on X.

He had earlier told Saudi Arabia it could "keep riding camels on the sand in the Saudi desert" while Israel would "keep truly developing - with an economy, a society, a state and all the great and wonderful things we know how to do," if it tried to demand an independent Palestinian state in return for normalising relations with Israel.

Smotrich has made outrageous remarks about Palestinians previously, saying they have no language and history, and has said it could be "justified and moral" for them to starve. He lives in an illegal Israeli settlement in the West Bank and has called for settlement expansion and the annexation of the West Bank in violation of international law.