TEL AVIV, Israel: After calling for Palestinian village to be ‘wiped out’, Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich stirs new outrage by denying the existence of Palestinians, claiming there’s “no such thing” as a Palestinian people.
Speaking in Paris on Sunday, Smotrich said there was “no such thing as a Palestinian” because “there is no such thing as the Palestinian people”.
He spoke at a lectern draped with what appeared to be a map of Israel that included the occupied West Bank and parts of Jordan.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said Smotrich’s remarks were “conclusive evidence of the extremist, racist Zionist ideology that governs the parties of the current Israeli government.”
A far-right settler leader who opposes Palestinian statehood, Smotrich has a history of offensive statements against the Palestinians. Last month, he called for the Palestinian town of Hawara in the West Bank to be “erased” after radical Jewish settlers rampaged through the town in response to a shooting attack that killed two Israelis. Smotrich later apologized after an international uproar.
His remarks on Palestinians were reminiscent of those made by late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir that caused uproar in 1969. She later told The New York Times that she meant there had never been a Palestinian nation. But critics say the comments continue to tarnish her legacy.
