Smotrich: Biden administration guilty of ‘top-level hypocrisy,’ has no right to ‘preach’

“I’m not even talking about the Americans and how they acted in Afghanistan and Iraq. They won’t preach to us about human rights.”

By World Israel News Staff

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich slammed the Biden administration for its “top-level hypocrisy” in criticizing Israel, saying the Washington had no right to “preach” to Jerusalem.

“No nation that has been facing an existential war against terrorism for decades has been fighting more cleanly and carefully than the Jewish people,” Smotrich said during an interview with Army Radio.

“I’m not even talking about the Americans and how they acted in Afghanistan and Iraq. They won’t preach to us about human rights, not to the IDF, and not to us on a government level. That is top-level hypocrisy,” he said.

“No country is as ethical as Israel, and no military is as ethical as the IDF. Anyone in the world who criticizes us is a hypocrite,” he added.

His remarks came in response to the U.S.’s denouncement of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir for prioritizing the security of Israeli citizens over the right of Palestinian Arabs to travel unfettered.

Ben-Gvir said during an interview with Channel 12 last week that “My right, and my wife’s and my children’s rights, to get around on the roads in Judea and Samaria, is more important than the right to movement for Arabs.”

“That’s the reality. That’s the truth. My right to life comes before their right to movement.”

Ben-Gvir’s comments drew sharp criticism from the Biden administration State Department, which “strongly condemned” him for his “inflammatory” rhetoric.

It also marked the first time the U.S. condemned Ben-Gvir using his name.

“Such messages are particularly damaging when amplified by those in leadership positions and are incongruent with advancing respect for human rights for all,” the State Department said.

“President Biden and Secretary Blinken have been clear that both Israelis and Palestinians deserve to enjoy equal measures of freedom and security.”

Ben-Gvir defended his comments a day after he made them, tweeting that his left-wing critics were misrepresenting what he had said.

“This is how fake news is spread: I said yesterday on a TV broadcast that the right of Jews to live and not be murdered in terror attacks prevails over the right of Arabs in Judea and Samaria to travel on the roads without security restrictions. That is why checkpoints should be placed on roads where regular terrorism and shooting by Jihadists are committed against Jews,” he said on Thursday.

“But the Israeli radical Left selectively cut a section out of my statement, purposefully misquoted even that, and removed the context in order to slander me as if I had made a racist declaration that Jews deserve more civil rights than Arabs.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday clarified Ben-Gvir’s controversial remarks, releasing at statement that read: “Israel allows maximum freedom of movement in Judea and Samaria for both Israelis and Palestinians.”

“Unfortunately, Palestinian terrorists take advantage of this freedom of movement to murder Israeli women, children and families by ambushing them at certain points on different routes.”

“Thirty-four civilians have been murdered by Palestinian terrorists in 2023, many of them while driving home. The most recent incident occurred when Batsheva Nagari was murdered on route 60 in Judea in front of her 6-year-old daughter,” the statement noted.

“In order to prevent these heinous murders, Israel’s security forces have implemented special security measures in these areas. This is what Minister Ben Gvir meant when he said ‘’the right to life precedes freedom of movement,’” said Netanyahu’s office.