Far-right Israeli Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Sunday that the Palestinian people are “an invention” from the last century, Israeli media reported.
Speaking at a private memorial service for prominent Likud activist member Jacques Kupfer, Smotrich reportedly said that there is “no such thing as Palestinians because there’s no such thing as the Palestinian people.”
According to the Israeli newspaper The Times of Israel, the comments were met with applause and cheers from attendees.
Israel’s Smotrich Says Call to ‘Wipe out’ Palestinian Town was ‘Slip of the Tongue’
“Do you know who are the Palestinians? I’m Palestinian,” Smotrich also said, as seen in a video posted online.
“The Palestinian people is an invention that is less than 100 years old,” Smotrich added.
The Times of Israel also reported that “Smotrich was speaking from a podium that featured a map of ‘Greater Israel’ that included the territory of modern-day Jordan, in accordance with hardline aspirations by some early Zionist groups.”
In his speech in Paris, Israeli Smotrich said, The Palestinian people are an invention of the last century. There is no such thing as Palestine because there is no such thing as Palestinian people
Thousands of Palestinians older than his state are still alive#SahabatPalestina_ID pic.twitter.com/4xfExEhruc— Anatolian Tiger (@HarimauAnatolia) March 20, 2023
Smotrich is notorious for his inflammatory and racist comments against Palestinians. On March 1, he sparked international outrage by saying that the Palestinian village of Huwwara, in the occupied West Bank, should be wiped out from the Israeli state.
The comments were then slammed as “repugnant” by the United States Department of State and prompted the French government to announce that it had no plans to meet with Smotrich during his visit to Paris.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
