Amman, 22 March 2023 (TDI): The Parliament of Jordan voted to request the government to expel the Israeli Ambassador from the country, as stated by the Jordanian media.
The Jordanian legislature reached this decision after the move of Bezalel Smotrich, who is the Finance Minister of Israel. In a private event in Paris, Smotrich made a comment in which he stood at a podium adorned with a graphic looking like a map.
Smotrich participated in a gala event in Paris at the invitation of a French Jewish association close to the far-right political wing.
The map shows extended Israeli borders that included Jordan, Gaza, and the West Bank, and that also denied the existence of the Palestinian people.
Smotrich argued that the idea of Palestinian nationhood was something of a constructed nation that was invented in the past century, in response to the Zionist movement of modern-day Israel.
He said, “who was the first Palestinian king? What language do the Palestinians have? Was there ever a Palestine? Palestinian currency? Is there a Palestinian history or culture? Nothing. There is no such thing as a Palestinian people.”
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Smotrich is a controversial personality that has given inflammatory statements against Palestinians time and again.
He is severely against regarding the recognition of Palestinian citizens of Israel, also a staunch opponent of the establishment of a Palestinian state.
The Palestinian Authority’s Presidency detested Smotrich’s remarks as “racist,” calling them “an attempt to falsify history.”
The Presidency further said that “Israel is a colonial state established by the colonialists and settlers, and it expanded like other settler colonialism throughout history.
We have learned from history that colonialism will end, ad that the will and belonging of our people are not shaken by the statements of the falsifiers of history and their false claims.”
In this context, the parliamentarians of Jordan requested the Jordanian government to expel the Ambassador of Israel.
