Israeli deputy mayor compares Netanyahu to Nazis for not annexing all of the West Bank

The deputy mayor of Jerusalem has sparked outrage in Israel after a tweet that appeared to compare Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Nazi Germany leader Adolf Hitler, due to the premier not pledging to annex the whole of the occupied West Bank.

"Netanyahu presents: the final solution," he said in a later deleted tweet, in an apparent reference to genocide of European Jews at the hand of the Nazis.

He later deleted the tweet, saying that he was referring to the Palestinians as "Nazis" not Netanyahu, in an openly racist slur.

King later uploaded another tweet saying: "He (Netanyahu) gave away Hebron, Abu Dis, Gush Katif, and Northern Samaria, imposed strict enforcement against Jews in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank], by demolishing the Dreinoff neighborhood [in Beit El], the settlements of Migron, Netiv ha-Avot, and hundreds of other Jewish homes in the territory, froze construction for Jews in Jerusalem for a decade and is working on the ground to divide the city". 

The first tweet ended with: "Now Netanyahu presents the final solution" and then went on to accuse the prime minister of supporting a "Palestinazi state" in a second tweet, as translated by watchdog Israel Unfiltered.

Read more: Will the Palestinian Authority really cut ties with Israel? 

King's comments came in response to Netanyahu's plans to annex 80 percent of the West Bank's illegal Israeli settlements. Some critics say the annexations do not go far enough and Tel Aviv should annex all of the settlements illegally built on Palestinian land.

The unity government formed earlier this month by Netanyahu and centrist Benny Gantz has said it can start annexing parts of the West Bank as soon as 1 July.

The Israeli government's annexation plans go hand-in-hand with a peace proposal by the Trump administration unveiled earlier this year.

The so-called "Deal of the Century" gives Israel a green light to annex most West Bank settlements, which are considered illegal under international law, as well as the strategic Jordan Valley.

"We have a historic opportunity, which hasn't existed since 1948, to apply sovereignty judiciously as a diplomatic... step in Judea and Samaria," Netanyahu told a meeting of lawmakers from his right-wing Likud party on Tuesday.

Right-wing Israelis and settlement advocates often use the biblical names Judea and Samaria to refer to the occupied West Bank.

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