The far-right Israeli minister Bezalel Smotrich, expected on a private visit to Paris on March 19, "
is not welcome
" in France, was indignant on Tuesday the League of Human Rights (LDH) by castigating an “
Arabophobic, homophobic, ultra-colonialist
” personality.
Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu's sulphurous finance minister is invited to Paris for an evening in tribute to Jacques Kupfer, a radical Zionist activist, former president of Likud (Benyamin Netanyahu's party) in France, an event relayed by radical groups like the Jewish Defense League.
Bezalel Smotrich, who is also in charge of civil affairs in the occupied West Bank, is an ardent defender of "
greater Israel
" and is himself a settler, underlines the LDH in its press release, before recalling the "
racist and homophobic
" protrusions of the minister.
Fanatical racism and denial of fundamental rights
At the end of February, Bezalel Smotrich notably called for the "
annihilation
" of the Palestinian village of Huwara, in the occupied West Bank, after two young settlers were killed there.
Their deaths prompted violent reprisals from settlers who attacked the village and burned down buildings.
Bezalel Smotrich's remarks had aroused indignant reactions in Washington, Paris or at the UN, prompting the minister to concede that he had "
poorly chosen
" his words.
“
Smotrich is fundamentally opposed to a Palestinian state and wants to submit the Israeli legal system to the Torah.
Faced with this surge of fanatical racism and denial of fundamental rights, the LDH here expresses its indignation and condemnation of everything that this character represents
, ”according to the press release.
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Bezalel Smotrich's private visit comes in an extremely tense context in the occupied West Bank, but also in Israel, where a controversial judicial reform examined by Parliament is sparking unprecedented opposition in the country, and large-scale demonstrations to denounce a anti-democratic drift.
In an editorial Monday, the president of CRIF (Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France) Yonathan Arfi denounced the "
populist, stigmatizing and hateful speeches in the Israeli public debate, even in the words of certain ministers in office
".
Asked about this private visit, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs replied that there would be no contact with the minister.
