Benjamin Netanyahu responds to Barack Obama: “The Jewish people are not foreign occupiers in the land of our ancestors”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Barack Obama in a video released Friday that “the Jewish people are not foreign occupiers.” The former American president recalled Tuesday in Belfast that “the Jewish people have, for millennia, been oppressed, discriminated against, killed.” “They understandably sought refuge in a place where they had historical ties. This is undeniable.” “What is also undeniable is that they took land from people. (These people), they were expelled,” added Barack Obama about the Palestinians. “And these people understandably said: This is an injustice and I want my land back.”

“The Jewish people are not foreign occupiers in the land of our ancestors,” Benjamin Netanyahu replied in his video on Friday. “Our history is not a colonial enterprise. Our land is not stolen land.” “This is our homeland. It is called Judea,” he added, using a biblical term to designate the south of the West Bank, which Israel conquered in 1967. The Israeli Prime Minister described Barack Obama's remarks in his video as “regrettable”, without mentioning his name, after the former US president considered that Israel had “lost its moral authority” in its treatment of the Palestinians.

“Responsibility by the very fact of its force”

“I said this directly to Netanyahu when I was president: at a certain point, to break the cycle, the stronger party has a responsibility by the very fact of its strength,” Barack Obama underlined in Belfast, according to videos posted online. “If Israel's position is to say 'Now that we are the most powerful, most technologically advanced army in the region, our security simply depends on us doing whatever we want, taking whatever we want and making no concessions to anyone,' that may work in the short term. But, for you, it’s a catastrophe,” Barack Obama said.

The Israeli prime minister is an ally of President Donald Trump. He violently clashed with Barack Obama during the Democrat's presidency, from 2009 to 2017, openly allying with Republicans to denounce President Barack Obama's diplomacy with Iran. Faced with close elections on October 27, Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly told voters that foreigners wanted him to lose, notably attacking New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a harsh critic of Israel.