Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to claims that former U.S. President Barack Obama made in Ireland recently, including that it was “undeniable” that Israel stole other people’s land.
“The fact is that the Jewish people, for millennia, were oppressed, discriminated against, killed. Europe was responsible for much of it. They understandably sought a refuge,” the former U.S. president said, according to the Belfast Telegraph.
“That is undeniable. What is also undeniable is that they took land off people and they were expelled,” Obama said at Queen’s University Belfast, where he received an honorary doctorate. “Those people understandably said, ‘This is injustice, and I want my land back.’”
In his remarks at Belfast’s O2 Arena, Obama said that Israel’s approach is that “now that we are the strongest, the most technologically advanced in the region, then our security will depend on us simply doing whatever we need and taking whatever we want and not making any concessions to anyone.”
“That may work short-term,” Obama said, “but you have ceded moral ground if that is the position you take.”
On Friday, Netanyahu said in an English-language video that he heard a “regrettable” comment about Israel stealing land and losing the moral high ground. He didn’t name Obama.
“Jewish people are not foreign occupiers in the land of our forefathers,” he said. “Our history is not a colonial enterprise. Our land is not stolen land. This is our homeland.”
“It’s called Judea. That’s where Jews come from,” Netanyahu said. “We’ve been attached to it for thousands of years. We’re not the Dutch in Indonesia. We’re not the Belgians in the Congo. We’re Jews in Judea.”
The Israeli prime minister said that the Jewish state isn’t the obstacle to peace.
“It’s the refusal of our enemies and America’s enemies to recognize the Jewish people’s right to a state of our own in any boundary,” Netanyahu said. “That’s why they chant, ‘death to Israel.’ ‘Death to America.’”
“We’re defending our common civilization,” he said.
