Germany’s anti-Semitism commissioner on Tuesday said US President Donald Trump’s heavily criticized plan to rebuild Gaza and resettle Palestinians deserves a “closer look.”

“I don’t think it’s wrong to think radically and in a completely new way,” Felix Klein told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung newspaper.

The commissioner argued that Trump does not want to drive out Palestinians, but only to resettle them while Gaza is rebuilt.

“After all, you don’t sleep in your house while you’re renovating it, and the massive destruction basically calls for the comprehensive construction of a completely new infrastructure,” said Klein.

His comments were immediately disowned by Germany’s Interior Ministry, which Klein’s office is a part of.

Klein “did not speak for the federal government, but expressed his personal opinion,” a spokesman for the ministry told dpa.