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.
“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.”
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.
