After several frustrating days on the diplomatic front, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett turned to social media to post a clip from an interview he gave to CNN's chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour. “The interviewer from CNN asked me why we sent troops to use violence against Muslim worshippers on the Temple Mount. Watch my answer. I will continue to fight against the lies about Israel,” Bennett tweeted.
In the video clip attached to the tweet, Bennett sounded particularly antagonistic. In a tense exchange, he chastised Amanpour, saying, “There you go again, starting the story in the middle, but the actual fact is that last Friday, at about 5 a.m. in the morning, roughly 300 Palestinian rioters entered the Temple Mount mosque with explosives, with stones. They began desecrating their own mosque, burning, throwing stones and preventing about 80,000 decent Muslims from going to pray. My responsibility as prime minister of Israel is to provide freedom of prayer to everyone in Jerusalem, including Muslims, which is why I had to send in policemen to remove the rioters. And it worked. Indeed, 80,000 Muslims went on later to pray peacefully. So, you know, when faced with violence, you have to act tough.”