Obama on Israel, Belfast 14 October 2026
The part of Obama’s remarks on Palestine that deserved to be headlined is the following, which acknowledges that Israel engaged in ethnic cleansing:
“The fact is that the Jewish people, for millennia, were oppressed, discriminated against, killed. Europe was responsible for much of it. They understandably sought a refuge.
“That is undeniable. What is also undeniable is that they took land off people and they were excessive. And those people understandably said, ‘This is injustice and I want my land back.'”
He didn’t anything like that when he was President – and most accounts of what he said in Belfast leave out his accusation that Israel engaged in ethnic cleansing (for instance the Irish Times did).
