‘REPUGNANT’

Far-Right Israeli Official Calls Palestinian People ‘an Invention’

“There is no such thing as a Palestinian. There is no such thing as the Palestinian people,” Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said.

Weeks after calling for the complete erasure of a Palestinian village in the West Bank, ultranationalist Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is now denying the existence of the Palestinian people completely. “There is no such thing as a Palestinian. There is no such thing as the Palestinian people,” Smotrich said at an event in Paris, going on to call the Palestinian people “an invention that is less than 100 years old.” The remarks were quickly slammed by the United States Department of State as “repugnant” and prompted an outspoken condemnation by Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh, who cited the comments as “conclusive evidence of the extremist, racist, Zionist ideology that governs the current Israeli government.” Smotrich, who is responsible for civilian administration in the West Bank, recently aroused international ire after calling for the Palestinian village of Huwara to be “wiped out” amid a ratcheting up of violence in the Israel-Palestine conflict.