Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister for Israel, on Monday criticised US actions in Afghanistan and Iraq and decried Washington’s “hypocrisy” and disregard for human rights.
According to Smotrich, “Israel is the most moral nation, and the IDF (army) is the most moral army.”
The finance minister referred to groups that criticise Israel as “hypocrites.”
No nation, he claimed, has “fought for its existence against murderous terrorism for decades in a cleaner and more cautious way than the Jewish people.”
I’m not referring to the Americans’ behaviour in Afghanistan and Iraq. They should refrain from lecturing the IDF or us on a political level about human rights. This is complete hypocrisy, he continued.
Invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq by the US came after the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
Smotrich’s remarks followed the US’s description of remarks made by Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right National Security Minister, regarding Palestinians as “racist rhetoric.”
Ben-Gvir said last week that Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank have more rights to safety and mobility than Palestinians.
Ben-Gvir, using the biblical word for the region under occupation, declared that “my right, my wife’s right, and my children’s right to roam the roads of Judea and Samaria are more important than the right of movement of the Arabs.”
Smotrich advocates for the annexation of significant portions of the West Bank to Israel and favours the construction of settlements in the Palestinian territory.