Israel’s chief rabbi David Yosef has denied the existence of Palestinians as a nation and their rights, in remarks the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) slammed as “hate-filled” rhetoric.
“There is no such thing as a Palestinian people, and they have no rights,” he said at the Gush Katif Museum in West al-Quds.
The extremist chief rabbi also reiterated Israel’s claim of sovereignty over the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian cities across the occupied West Bank.
Additionally, he called for the destruction of Gaza and the establishment of Israeli settlements in the besieged Palestinian territory, claiming that “Gaza is ours” and “we will return there.”
CAIR, the United States’ largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, condemned Yosef’s “hate-filled” rhetoric, saying it “dehumanizes Palestinians and helps create an ideological and religious climate in which genocide is normalized and justified.”
“It is profoundly disturbing that a religious leader would deny the very existence and basic rights of an entire people,” CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad added.
“Palestinians are a people with a deep-rooted history, culture, identity and connection to their homeland. Their existence and their human rights are not matters for anyone to grant or deny.”
Awad also noted that Palestinians deserve the same fundamental rights, dignity, freedom, and security that every human being deserves.
Israel unleashed a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, after the Hamas resistance group carried out a historic operation against the usurping entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
Two years later, Israel accepted a Gaza ceasefire deal, following the failure to achieve its declared objectives of eliminating Hamas and freeing all captives.
Since then, however, the criminal regime has kept conducting attacks on Gaza in violation of the truce, killing at least 73,419 people and injuring 174,364 others in the besieged territory over the past almost three years.
