Netanyahu says he doesn’t want to weigh in on US election, but Sanders’s comments are ‘wrong’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is “wrong,” following the presidential candidates comments about the leader being “racist” in Tuesday’s debate, Reuters reported. 

But the Israeli leader added that he didn’t want to weigh in on the U.S. election, refraining from criticizing Sanders beyond denying his claims.

“I am not intervening in the U.S. election,” Netanyahu said when asked on Israeli Army Radio about the senator’s remarks, Reuters reported. 

“What I think about this matter is that he is definitely wrong. No question about it,” he added when pressed further. 

The Vermont progressive, who has opposed the conservative Netanyahu’s policies, called him “a reactionary racist who is now running” Israel during the Democratic primary’s South Carolina debate.

Netanyahu has abstained from speaking about the U.S. election throughout his own election campaign in Israel. But the prime minister said he has confronted presidential opposition to his policies in the past and would do that again, according to Reuters. 

Sanders would become the first Jewish U.S. president if elected. 

In the past, Netanyahu has praised Trump as a friend to Israel after the president withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal and moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.

Netanyahu faces his own election Monday, which is the third in less than a year, after being unable to form a government following the other elections. 

Sanders also announced he would not attend the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference, saying the organization gives a platform to “leaders who express bigotry.”