Gulf appeals to US on Israeli minister's Palestinian comments

The Gulf Cooperation Council said Sunday it had written to Washington’s top diplomat condemning comments from Israel’s finance minister in which he denied the existence of a Palestinian people.

The GCC, in a letter to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, called on Washington “to assume its responsibilities in responding to all measures and statements that target the Palestinian people”.

The letter from the six-member GCC’s foreign ministers also urged the United States “to play its role in reaching a just, comprehensive and lasting solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, speaking earlier this month, said the Palestinians did not exist as a people, comments that sparked outrage among Arab nations.

The US State Department said it found Smotrich’s comments “to not only be inaccurate but also deeply concerning and dangerous.”

Blinken, appearing before a Senate committee, reiterated that pushback last week, saying Smotrich’s comments did not reflect US values.

Smotrich is part of veteran Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right government that took office in December.

The GCC ministers also denounced earlier remarks by Smotrich calling for the Palestinian town of Huwara in the occupied West Bank to be “wiped out”.

The GCC, whose foreign ministers met in Riyadh last week, includes the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which normalised relations with Israel under the US-crafted Abraham Accords in 2020, as well as Saudi Arabia, which has not.

– ‘Provocative’ moves –

Violence has surged this year in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since the Six-Day War of 1967.

The West Bank is home to hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers — including Smotrich — who live in state-approved settlements considered illegal under international law.

On Tuesday, the State Department criticised a move by Israel’s parliament to annul part of a law banning Israelis from living in areas of the West Bank evacuated in 2005, calling it “provocative” and in direct contradiction of promises made to Washington at the time.

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, headquartered in the Saudi city of Jeddah, on Sunday also criticised the Israeli lawmakers’ decision as well as reports that Israel was publishing tenders for new settlement housing units.

In a statement, the body “called on international actors to assume their responsibilities in the implementation of international resolutions and to exert pressure on Israel, the occupying power, to cease its aggressions and continued violations against the Palestinian people, their lands and its sacred places.”

The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia issued similar statements condemning potential settlement expansion.