Misinterpreting Smotrich

The State Department out of sheer ignorance misinterprets Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and misses the distinctive nuances of Israeli discourse. What Smotrich meant by saying that there is no Palestinian culture is that there is no specifically Palestinian Arab culture distinctive from other Levantine Arab cultures such as Jordanian and Syrian culture. When saying that Palestinians have no history he meant that they lack historical record as a people and that is true. When claiming that that there is no Palestinian people he was merely pointing out that it is a rather recent social construct based on British colonial boundaries.