STORY: US State Department spokesman Ned Price spoke in Washington on Wednesday in unequivocal terms criticizing recent statements by Israel’s finance minister related to the recent escalation of violence in the West Bank. Accordingly, the US criticizes the call by the Israeli finance minister to “wipe out” a Palestinian village. The comments were irresponsible, disgusting and an incitement to violence, Ned Price said in Washington. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must publicly distance himself from this. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is an ultranationalist in Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition. He had previously said of a settler attack on the Palestinian village of Huwara: “I think that Huwara must be wiped out.” But the state of Israel must do that “and not individual people”.