Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded on Friday to comments made by former US president Barack Obama, in which he accused Israel of taking "land off people and being "excessive," referring to Israel's treatment of the Palestinian people throughout the country's history.
Obama made the comments during a visit to Belfast, Northern Ireland, on Tuesday.
"The Jewish people are not foreign occupiers in the land of our forefathers," Netanyahu said in a video posted to X/Twitter. "Our history is not a colonial enterprise. Our land is not stolen land. This is our homeland."
Netanyahu called Obama's Belfast comments a "regrettable statement," emphasizing the connection between the Jewish People and the land of Israel, noting its biblical name, "Judea."
"That's where Jews come from," he said. "And we've been attached to it for thousands of years."
The prime minister differentiated Israel from European nations with colonial pasts, saying that the Jews in Israel are not "the Dutch in Indonesia... the Belgians in the Congo, we're Jews in Judea."
This is a developing story.