Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich during a meeting in Jerusalem February 23, 2023. RONEN ZVULUN / AP
It was to be a private gathering, an evening in honor of Jacques Kupfer, a figure in French Jewry who died in 2021. Finally, the ceremony took place on Sunday March 19 in Paris in the presence of the Israeli Minister of Finance. Bezalel Smotrichs became a far-right anti-Palestinian rally, prompting outraged reactions in several Arab capitals – but total silence on the French side.
During the ceremony, Mr. Smotrich, a Jewish supremacist, spoke from behind a lectern adorned with a map encompassing not only the Jewish state and the occupied Palestinian territories, but also the area of modern-day Jordan: the area of Greater Israel, for the proponents of this expansionist ideology.
The man who recently called for the “destruction” of the Palestinian village of Huwara in the West Bank in retaliation for the murder of two Jewish settlers used words of contempt for the Palestinians in his speech.
Read the portrait: Article reserved for our subscribers Bezalel Smotrich, the radical settler making his mark on the Israeli government
“There are no Palestinians because there is no Palestinian people,” he said, according to a video widely circulated on social media. The Palestinian people is an invention less than a hundred years old. Do they have a history, a culture? No, they do not have. There are no Palestinians, only Arabs. »
“Racist” and “unacceptable” statements
These comments sparked an outcry in the Middle East on Monday, March 20. Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh called them “arson” and said they were “irrefutable proof of the racism of the extreme Zionist ideology” of the Israeli government led by Binyamin Netanyahu.
The spokesman for the Jordanian Foreign Ministry, in response to the map of Greater Israel issued in the evening, condemned “a dangerous provocation and a violation of international norms and the Jordanian peace treaty”. Cairo also called Mr Smotrich’s remarks “racist” and “unacceptable”.
Although announced ten days ago, the presence of the advocate of the fundamentalist Zionists in Paris came as a surprise. Last week, following protests by pro-Palestinian movements and human rights organizations, Israeli media reported that the 43-year-old leader of the religious Zionist Party had resigned from the trip.
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The evening took place at the Salons Hoche, a luxurious reception center near the Champs-Elysées, decorated with Israeli flags for the occasion. The event was dedicated to the memory of the founder of Israel is Forever, the very controversial Jacques Kupfer.
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