Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich responded to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on X, writing that 'the days when Germans dictated to Jews where they are allowed and forbidden to live are over and will not return.' Smotrich was responding to a post by Merz in which he said he spoke with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and expressed his concern about 'developments in the Palestinian territories' and that 'there must not be a de facto annexation of the West Bank.' Smotrich responded: 'On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, the German chancellor should bow his head and apologize and not dare to lecture us on morality about how to deal with the Nazis of our generation who murdered, raped, slaughtered and burned women, the elderly and children. You will not put us in ghettos again, certainly not in our own land.'