In Paris, Israel’s Smotrich says Palestinian people don't exist, calls them 'fictitious'
Addressing far-right French Jews at a conference, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich dismissed the existence of the Palestinian people, claiming he and his forefathers were the “real Palestinians.”
PARIS — Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich made more inflammatory comments, denying on Sunday the existence of the Palestinian people, as he addressed a group of French Jews at a private memorial service in Paris.
“There is no such thing as Palestinians because there is no such thing as a Palestinian people,” he said. A video of the speech posted online shows the audience applauding for Smotrich after the remark.
“Do you know who are the Palestinians? I’m Palestinian,” said Smotrich. The head of the ultranationalist Religious Zionism party argued that his grandmother, born in the northern Israeli town of Metula 100 years ago, and his grandfather, a 13th-generation Jerusalemite, were the “real Palestinians.”
He went on to lambast the existence of even a Palestinian culture. “Is there a Palestinian history or culture? No. There were Arabs in the Middle East who arrived in the land of Israel at the same time as the Jewish immigration and the beginning of Zionism. After 2,000 years of exile, the people of Israel were returning home, and there were Arabs around [us] who do not like it," he claimed.
