THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY, Egypt and Jordan today condemned as “racist” an Israeli minister’s remarks denying the existence of the Palestinian people.
Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, is part of veteran leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right government that took office in December.
Smotrich had already faced international rebuke in early March after calling for a Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank to be “wiped out”, amid spiralling violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“There are no Palestinians, because there isn’t a Palestinian people,” he said yesterday in Paris, quoting French-Israeli Zionist activist Jacques Kupfer at an event in his memory, according to a video circulating on social media.
Palestinian prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said ahead of a cabinet meeting on Monday the “inflammatory statements” made by Smotrich provided “conclusive evidence of the extremist, racist Zionist ideology… of the current Israeli government”.
Evoking biblical “prophecies” that are “beginning to come true”, Smotrich said: “After 2,000 years… God is gathering his people. The people of Israel are returning home.”
“There are Arabs around who don’t like it, so what do they do? They invent a fictitious people and claim fictitious rights to the Land of Israel, only to fight the Zionist movement,” he said.
“It is the historical truth, it is the biblical truth.”
Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, dubbed the minister’s remarks “completely unhelpful”, stressing the Palestinian people “obviously” exists.
“We continue to support their rights and to push for a two-state solution,” Haq said.
The minister, who met no French government officials during his trip, was speaking from a lectern which featured a map of so-called Greater Israel, including the West Bank, annexed Golan Heights, blockaded Gaza Strip and Jordan – the neighbouring Arab country that signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since the Six-Day War of 1967, when it also seized east Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights.
Smotrich’s comments came as Israeli and Palestinian representatives met in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh along with Egyptian, Jordanian and US officials for “extensive discussions on ways to de-escalate tensions,” according to a joint statement.
The Jordanian foreign ministry today called the remarks “extremist racism” and warned his “use of a map… that encompasses the border of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan” may be in violation of the 1994 peace accord.
The Israeli foreign ministry tweeted shortly afterwards to clarify “Israel is committed to the 1994 peace agreement with Jordan” and “recognises the territorial integrity of the Hashemite Kingdom”, without mentioning the content of the speech.
In a following statement, the Jordanian ministry said it had summoned the Israeli ambassador to receive a “strongly worded letter of protest to convey to his government”.
Egypt, which in 1979 became the first Arab country to recognise and sign a peace treaty with Israel, condemned the “inflammatory and unacceptable” as well as “racist” remarks, Cairo’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
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