Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said during a visit to Paris that “the Palestinian people do not exist” and that the real Palestinians are Jews who lived in the “land of Israel” more than 2,000 years ago, EFE reported on Monday.

“These are Arabs in the Middle East who arrived in the land of Israel at the same time as the return of the Zionist Jews, after 2,000 years of exile, which the Arabs in the region did not want. And what do they do then? They invent a fictitious people and claim fictitious rights to the land of Israel just to fight against the Zionist movement,” an Israeli minister said Sunday night at an event in Paris.

Smotrych is considered one of the radicals of the new government of Benjamin Netanyahu, the most right-wing in the country’s history.

“The truth must be told without bowing to the lies and distortions of history by pro-Palestinian organizations and BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions/Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions against Israel),” he added in statements published by Israeli media on Monday. .

Smotrich, a settler and leader of the far-right religious Zionist party, said that the real Palestinians are people like him and his ancestors who lived on the land of Israel centuries ago, which is in line with the positions of the settlement movement, which represents the new government along with by other partners such as Itamar Ben Gvir, both known for their anti-Arab rhetoric and Jewish supremacy.

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“My father was a 13th-generation native of Jerusalem, and my grandmother, who was born into a family of Zionist pioneers 100 years ago in Metula, is Palestinian,” he said.

After a controversial visit to the US, which American Jewish organizations tried to boycott and during which Joe Biden’s administration officials avoided meeting with him because of his radical positions, Smotrich visited Paris on Sunday to take part in a memorial service for Jacques Kupfer, the French far-right activist.

During the event, he stated that Arabs have no historical rights to the “land of Israel” – the territory that includes today’s Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories – because they came to the territory to “stop the return of the Zionists”, a remark that only happened two weeks after he said the Palestinian city of Huwara, which was ravaged by hundreds of violent settlers who torched cars and homes, should be wiped off the face of the earth.

“According to international law, a nation is defined by its history, culture, language, currency and leadership. Who was the first king of Palestine? What is the Palestinian language? Was there ever a Palestinian currency? Is there a Palestinian history or culture? No,” he insisted, denying Palestinian national identity.