Qatar condemned on Wednesday, 22 March 2023 Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s comments describing the Palestinian people as “an invention”.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned in the strongest terms Smotrich’s, comments saying these comments were “new evidence of the racism of the occupation government.”

The Ministry considered the statements of the Israeli minister as new evidence of the racism of the Israeli occupation government and an attempt to falsify history and deny the right of the Palestinian people to exist.

Far-right Israeli minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich dismissed on Monday the existence of a Palestinian people during a speech he delivered in Paris.

“no such thing as Palestinians because there’s no such thing as the Palestinian people,” he said.

“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, 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.