Regev says Netanyahu fixer apologized after being recorded calling her an ‘animal’

Culture Minister Miri Regev issues her first public response to a recording aired yesterday of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s aide Natan Eshel calling her an “animal” and saying that “non-Ashkenazi” voters were swayed by negative campaigning.

“It’s good that Natan Eshel understood the mistake he made. He called me and apologized from the bottom of his heart,” she writes on Twitter. “His words yesterday were improper and there is no place for them.”

Regev, who has frequently lashed out at left-wing figures for remarks seen as offensive to Mizrahi Jews, says Eshel “only represents himself” and rails at the Blue and White party over allegedly racist comments by some of its lawmakers.

“Blue and White is an elitist, racist party that is arrogant to Mizrahis and the periphery,” she says, adding that Mizrahi Jews have “an authentic representative in Likud.”