Saudi Arabia rejects Israeli Finance Minister’s statements against Palestine

The Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed the Kingdom’s rejection, condemnation, and denunciation of the offensive and racist statements made by an Israeli government official against the State of Palestine and its people.

A statement from the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the statements of the Israeli Minister of Finance, Safadi said that the right of the Palestinian people to exist is not canceled by extremist statements.

The Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs affirmed the Kingdom’s position rejecting these statements contrary to the truth, which contributes to spreading hate speech and violence and undermines efforts for dialogue and international peace.

Supporting  all international efforts

It also renewed the Kingdom’s support for all international efforts aimed at resolving the Palestinian issue on the basis of the Arab Peace Initiative and ensuring the establishment of a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

These statements come after Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said, “The Palestinian people are an invention, and that the Arabs invented an imaginary people in the Land of Israel and demanded imaginary rights in the Land of Israel just to fight the Zionist movement.”

The Israeli Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, took a podium with the so-called “Map of the Land of Israel” with the annexation of Jordan, to deliver a speech in Paris. Jordan’s official move was to protest against the minister’s provocation of the Jordanian people and government.

“There is no such thing as the Palestinian people,” Smotrich said, during his speech to the participants in the evening to commemorate Kupfer, adding that “this (the Palestinian people) is nothing but an invention dating back less than 100 years.”

Jordanian Rejection

For its part, the Jordanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed Monday, its strong condemnation and denunciation of the Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s use, during his participation in an event held Sunday in Paris, of a map of “Israel” that includes the borders of the Kingdom of Jordan and the occupied Palestinian territories.

The Jordanian ministry said in an official statement that the minister’s behavior represented “a reckless incitement and a violation of international norms and the Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty.”

The official spokesman for the ministry, Sinan al-Majali, said that his country condemns “the racist and extremist inciting statements made by the extremist Israeli minister towards the brotherly Palestinian people and their right to exist, and their historical rights in their independent and sovereign state on the Palestinian national soil, and warned of the danger of these extremist racist actions.” according to his words.

Egyptian Rejection

The Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs commented on the statements made by the Minister of Finance in the Israeli government, in which he denied the existence of the Palestinian people with their heritage, culture, history, and identity.

The Egyptian ambassador Ahmed Abu Zeid, the official spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stressed Egypt’s complete rejection of these irresponsible and inciting statements, and the racist gestures they carry that deny the facts of history and geography, and fuel feelings of anger and congestion among the masses of the Palestinian people, and even the peoples of the free world and those with living consciences around the world.

Ambassador Abu Zeid considered that such statements undermine the efforts aimed at achieving calm between the Palestinian and Israeli sides, and we are on the verge of the blessed month of Ramadan, which coincides this year with the Christian and Jewish holidays, all of which establish meanings of tolerance, peace, and respect for the other.