Jordanian Foreign Affairs Minister today slammed Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich over using a ‘Greater Israel’ map.
The Ministry strongly denounced Smotrich over delivering a speech an event in Paris with a map of what he termed as ‘Greater Israel’ hanging in front of him, which appeared to define Israel’s borders as including Jordan, the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Official Spokesman of the Jordanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ambassador Sinan Al-Majali stated that the use of such a map represents a reckless incitement that is in violation of international norms and the Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty, as reported in Jordan News Agency (Petra).
The ministry condemned the racist, inciting and extremist statements made by Smotrich against the brotherly Palestinian people, their right to exist and their historical right to an independent and sovereign state on Palestinian national soil, al-Majali added, warning against the seriousness of such hardline remarks.
The ministry called on the international community to condemn Smotrich’s inflammatory actions and statements, which are in violation of human values and principles.
The ministry stresses the need for the Israeli government to take a clear and open position toward such extremism, and the inflammatory and malicious statements by a serving minister, said Majali.
The Ministry said it will take all necessary political and legal action against such statements, which amount to a dangerous escalation that threatens the region’s security and stability.
Such extremist statements and actions, the ministry stressed, will not undermine Jordan or undercut the rights of the brotherly Palestinian people, but rather will expose to the world the historical injustice to which the Palestinian people are being subjected and the dangerous extremism and racism of the Israeli minister.
On Sunday, Smotrich declared that “There’s no such thing as Palestinians because there’s no such thing as a Palestinian people” at a memorial service for a late Likud activist in Paris.
The far-right lawmaker said that the Palestinian people were “an invention” cooked up in the 20th century to fight Zionism and that it was people like him and his grandparents who were the “real Palestinians”.
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, Smotrich, who holds significant powers over the occupied West Bank, said that the French and US governments needed to hear “this truth” about the Palestinians.
‘Do you know who are the Palestinians?’ the head of the ultra-nationalist Religious Zionism party said. “I’m Palestinian.”
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.
Source: Palestine News & Information Agency