The Palestinian Authority condemned Israel’s far-right finance minister’s rejection of the existence of Palestinian folks, saying that gives “conclusive evidence” of the federal government’s “racist ideology.”
The far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is a part of veteran chief Benjamin Netanyahu’s authorities that took workplace in December, one of the vital right-wing within the nation’s historical past.
Smotrich, who has a historical past of incendiary remarks, confronted worldwide rebuke earlier this month after calling for a Palestinian city within the occupied West Bank to be “wiped out.”
“There are no Palestinians, because there isn’t a Palestinian people,” he stated on Sunday in Paris, quoting French-Israeli Zionist activist Jacques Kupfer at an occasion in his reminiscence, in response to a video circulating on social media.
As he made the speech, he stood at a podium coated in what seemed to be a variation of the Israeli flag that confirmed an Israeli state with expanded boundaries that included the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza and Jordan.
A spokesperson for Smotrich, head of one of many religious-nationalist events in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right coalition, stated the flag was set as ornament by the convention organizers and that the minister was a visitor.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh stated forward of a Cabinet assembly on Monday the “inflammatory statements” made by Smotrich “are consistent with the first Zionist sayings of ‘a land without a people for a people without a land.'”
They offered “conclusive evidence of the extremist, racist Zionist ideology… of the current Israeli government,” Shtayyeh stated.
A separate assertion by the Palestinian Foreign Ministry stated that, by denying the existence of the Palestinian folks and their authentic nationwide rights of their homeland, Israeli leaders “foster an environment that fuels Jewish extremism and terrorism against our people.”
Such positions “continue the spiral of violence with the aim of sabotaging efforts to achieve calm.”
Evoking biblical “prophecies” which are “beginning to come true,” Smotrich stated: “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 stated.
“It is the historical truth, it is the biblical truth,” he added.
“The Arabs in Israel must hear it, as well as certain Jews in Israel who are confused – this truth must be heard here at the Elysee Palace (in Paris), and at the White House in Washington, and everyone must hear this truth.”
‘Inflammatory’
The minister, who met no French authorities officers throughout his journey, was talking from a lectern that featured a map of a “Greater Israel,” together with the West Bank, annexed Golan Heights, blockaded Gaza Strip and Jordan, the neighboring Arab nation that signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994.
Israel has occupied the West Bank because the Six-Day War of 1967, when it additionally seized East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights.
Smotrich’s feedback got here as Israeli and Palestinian representatives met within the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Shiekh together with Egyptian, Jordanian and U.S. officers for “extensive discussions on ways to de-escalate tensions between the Palestinians and Israelis,” in response to a joint assertion.
The Jordanian Foreign Ministry on Monday condemned the minister’s remarks, calling them “extremist racism” and Smotrich himself an “extremist.”
It warned in a press release that his “use of a map… that encompasses the border of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan” could also be in violation of the 1994 peace accord.
Hamas in Gaza stated the feedback revealed the “racist and fascist policies” of Israel, urging the worldwide neighborhood to take a “firm stance.”
Violence has intensified within the West Bank in current months, coinciding with Netanyahu’s return to workplace.
Since the beginning of the 12 months, the battle has claimed the lives of 86 Palestinian adults and youngsters, together with safety forces and civilians.
Fourteen Israeli adults and youngsters, together with troopers and civilians, and one Ukrainian civilian have been killed over the identical interval, in response to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) tally primarily based on official sources from either side.
On Sunday, whereas talks have been underway in Egypt, an Israeli was significantly wounded in a capturing assault in Huwara.
Source: www.dailysabah.com
