Outrage as Israel minister says ‘no such thing’ as Palestinian people
- In a speech widely shared on social media, finance chief Bezalel Smotrich said was no Palestinian history or culture
- He also angered neighbouring Jordan for speaking at a podium that had an Israeli flag with expanded borders that incorporated the kingdom
An Israeli minister with responsibility for administrating the occupied West Bank drew condemnation on Monday after he said there was no Palestinian history or culture and no such thing as a Palestinian people.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich also angered neighbouring Jordan for speaking at a podium covered in what appeared to be a variation of the Israeli flag that showed an Israeli state with expanded boundaries that included the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza and Jordan.
“Is there a Palestinian history or culture? There is none,” he can be heard saying in footage of the speech he gave on Sunday at a conference in France shared widely on social media. “There is no such thing as a Palestinian people.”
Smotrich, who heads a religious-nationalist party in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right coalition, made the speech on the same day that Israeli and Palestinian officials met in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh for de-escalation talks ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the Jewish Passover holiday.
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Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh condemned Smotrich’s remarks, saying they amounted to incitement to violence.