Pro-Palestinian demonstrations are part of a wider agenda to “destroy the Jewish state”.
Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Sa’ar made the comments on The Lens @177 when asked about protests held outside the opening of the Israeli embassy in Suva.
“I don’t think that a protest of a very small number of people is dividing the country,” Mr Sa’ar said.
“It’s a protest. Fiji is a democracy. We respect that.”
However, Mr Sa’ar criticised supporters of the Palestinian cause, saying they were often more focused on opposing Israel than on building Fijian institutions.
“So we came to a happy occasion, a bilateral happy occasion between Israel and Fiji. So it is a pity.”
Mr Sa’ar also defended Israel’s military actions in Gaza and the wider Middle East, despite the number of civilian lives lost.
“When you are in a war, you have usually some kind of collateral damage.”
When asked about the children and innocent civilians killed as a result of Israeli attacks, he blamed groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah for using people as “human shields”.
“We never target children and we never target civilians.
“In a war you have blood, but Hamas is responsible for the blood and for the suffering of both sides because they began this war in an attempt to destroy our country.”
He said this “human shields” tactic made military operations more difficult and changed the nature of the conflict.
However, Mr Sa’ar said Israel had strong intelligence capabilities and argued that its military was more accurate than many other forces in the world.
He also claimed Hamas effectively controlled Gaza and Hezbollah effectively controlled Lebanon, describing both as examples of what he called “terror states”.
“If Hamas wanted to protect civilians in Gaza, it could have used its underground infrastructure to shelter them.”
Instead, he claimed civilians were kept above ground while Hamas fighters operated from underground.
“It tells you something about them and their moral and their care for their people.”
