(JTA) – An Israeli left-wing lawmaker implied that the son of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was a fascist after the 26-year-old suggested that far-left thugs may be as dangerous as neo-Nazis.

Mickey Rosenthal of the Zionist Union took aim at Yair Netanyahu on Twitter Wednesday, calling him “Netanyahu Jugend” – a reference to the Nazi youth movement that promoted the adoration of Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany, the nrg news site reported. The tweet, which Rosenthal deleted and apologized for, was over the younger Netanyahu’s Facebook post in connection with the violence that erupted over the weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Yair Netanyahu was commenting on events Saturday in which a white supremacist rammed his car into counterprotesters of a far-right rally, killing one and injuring some 20 others. Many clashes between activists for the two groups were recorded. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that both sides share the blame for the violence.

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“I’m a Jew, I’m an Israeli, the neo nazis scums in Virginia hate me and my country,” Yair Netanyahu wrote in English Wednesday, apparently after Trump’s reference at a news conference in New York to shared blame. “But they belong to the past. Their breed is dying out. However the thugs of Antifa and BLM who hate my country (and America too in my view) just as much are getting stronger and stronger and becoming super dominant in American universities and public life.”

BLM is the acronym for the Black Lives Matter movement. Antifa is a group that opposes neo-Nazism and has some members from far-left circles.

Rosenthal initially doubled down on his linking of Yair Netanyahu to the German youth movement, whose name means “Hitler Youth.”

“Literally, what I wrote means ‘Netanyahu’s child,’” Rosenthal wrote to critics who felt offended by the phrase. “Unfortunately, the son is continuing to sow hatred like his father. I assume Ntanyahu and his supporters will try to twist what I said to their needs.”

But minutes later Rosenthal retracted and deleted his initial post.

“I reconsidered,” he said. “The criticism is founded. I accept it and apologize to anyone offended.”

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