The Jordanian Foreign Ministry on Monday slammed Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich for his Sunday’s appearance in Paris where he gave a speech at a podium featuring a map that included Jordan and the occupied West Bank as part of ‘Israel’ and said the Palestinian people were “an invention.”
The spokesperson of the Jordanian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that this was “incitement” and a violation of the peace agreement between ‘Israel’ and Jordan.
“We also condemn the racist, inciting, and extreme statements of the extreme Israeli minister against the Palestinian people and their right to exist. These are dangerous statements. The Israeli government must express a clear position towards this extreme conduct and against these inciting statements,” the ministry’s statement said.
Speaking in Paris on Sunday at the memorial of the late Likud activist Jacques Kupfer, Smotrich said there was “no such thing as a Palestinian” because “there is no such thing as the Palestinian people. There is no Palestinian history. There is no Palestinian language.”
“Do you know who are the Palestinians? I’m Palestinian,” Smotrich said, going on to describe his late grandfather, who he claimed was a “13th generation Jerusalemite” as “the true Palestinian.”
“The Palestinian people is an invention that is less than 100 years old,” added Smotrich.
“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 did not like it. So what do they do? They invent fictitious people in the Land of Israel and claim fictitious rights in the Land of Israel just to fight the Zionist movement,” Smotrich alleged.
Smotrich was speaking at a podium adorned with a map based on the crest of the Zionist Irgun militia, which shows ‘Israel’ straddling the West Bank and Jordan, saying that the French and US governments needed to hear “this truth” about the Palestinians.
The map shown on the podium Smotrich was speaking at also showed parts of Syria and Lebanon, regions included in the concept of Eretz Yisrael – Greater Israel – a key part of ultra-nationalist Zionism that claims all of these lands for a Zionist state.
Smotrich’s appearance at the memorial was supposed to be sponsored by the Jewish National Fund (JNF), but the group removed its support because of the minister’s appearance, Haaretz reported.
The Jordanian Foreign Ministry also summoned the Israeli ambassador in Amman over Smotrich’s comments.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry tweeted on Monday that ‘Israel’ is committed to the 1994 peace agreement with Jordan.
“There has been no change in the position of the State of Israel, which recognizes the territorial integrity of the Hashemite Kingdom,” the tweet read.
The tweet came after Jordanian officials pressed the Israeli occupation government to issue a clarification over Smotrich’s appearance with the “Greater Israel” map, Israeli officials said.
Israeli national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said in a tweet later Monday that he spoke to Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi and assured him “of the commitment the Government of Israel has to uphold the peace treaty between our two countries which has strengthened the stability and the security of our region for nearly 30 years.”
Smotrich, who is also responsible for Israel’s civil administration in the occupied West Bank, is well-known for making inflammatory statements against Palestinians and is a staunch opponent of the establishment of a Palestinian state.
On March 1, he triggered international outrage after he called for the Palestinian village of Huwwara to be “wiped out”, comments that coincided with hundreds of Israeli settlers violently rampaging through the streets of Huwwara, killing one person, injuring hundreds of others, and burning dozens of cars. The settler riot, or what many are calling a pogrom, came in revenge after a shooting operation was carried out and resulted in the killing of two Israeli settlers in the town of Huwwara earlier that day.
