Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a stern public rebuke to former President Obama after Obama accused Israel of taking Palestinian land and defended the Palestinian response to Israel’s founding.

Netanyahu answered in a video posted on X Friday, rejecting Obama’s portrayal of Jewish Israelis as foreign occupiers. The Israeli leader centered his response on the Jewish people’s historic connection to the land.

“The Jewish people are not foreign occupiers in the land of our forefathers,” Netanyahu responded.

Obama’s comments came during a paid speaking engagement Tuesday at the O2 Arena in Belfast, Northern Ireland. About 7,000 people attended the event, where Obama spoke with Irish journalist Susan McKay.

Former President Barack Obama accused Jews of unjustly taking land from Palestinians during remarks in Northern Ireland on Tuesday, promoting an antizionist distortion of Israel’s history that ignores decades of legal land purchases from wealthy Arab property owners. British government records show Jewish buyers paid Arab landowners the equivalent of roughly $510 million in just three years before Israel’s founding, usually at exorbitant prices.

“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,’” Obama said. The former president made the ahistorical claims on October 13 during a public talk with journalist Susan McKay at The O2 Belfast, an arena in Northern Ireland. Earlier that day, he received an honorary doctorate from Queen’s University Belfast. Read the article here: https://t.co/VF8nfbPtwJ — Kevin Deutsch (@kdeutschjourno) October 14, 2026

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During the conversation, Obama criticized the founding of Israel and defended Palestinian terrorism. Before making his argument, he said European persecution had driven Jewish people to seek refuge in the Middle East.

Obama then said land had been taken from people who were expelled. He portrayed their resulting sense of injustice and desire to reclaim the land as understandable.

The former president also targeted Israel’s conduct in the war against Hamas in Gaza. He accused Israel of surrendering “moral ground” through its actions during the conflict.

The war was launched after Hamas invaded Israel and killed over 1,200 people during the terrorist group’s barbaric attacks on Oct. 7, 2023. Obama nevertheless focused his criticism on how Israel has used its regional strength and technological advantages.

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“If the attitude of Israel is, now that we are the strongest, the most technologically advanced in the region, then our security will depend on us simply doing whatever we need and taking whatever we want, and not making any concessions to anyone, that may work short-term,” Obama said.

“But you have ceded moral ground if that is the position you take.”

Earlier that same day, the 44th president received an honorary doctorate from Queen’s University Belfast. His remarks about Israel came later at the paid event before an audience of roughly 7,000 people.

Netanyahu firmly dismissed Obama’s claim that Israel had stolen Palestinian land. He argued that Jewish people are indigenous to the Levant and have maintained their connection to the region for thousands of years.

“Our land is not stolen land. This is our homeland; it’s called Judea. That’s where Jews come from. We’ve been attached to it for thousands of years,” Netanyahu said.

The Israeli prime minister also rejected the idea that Israel is the obstacle to peace. He said Israel’s fight concerns its right to continue existing in its own state, while its enemies refuse to recognize the Jewish people’s right to statehood.

Netanyahu further linked Israel’s enemies with those of the United States. His rebuttal placed the refusal to recognize a Jewish state, rather than Israel’s existence or its fight for survival, at the center of the regional conflict.

“The obstacle to peace is not Israel; it’s not our fight for our very right to exist in our own state; it’s the refusal of our enemies, and America’s enemies to recognize the Jewish people’s right to a state of our own, in any boundaries,” Netanyahu said.

The Jewish people’s right to their own state in their ancestral homeland is non-negotiable.

Watch: https://t.co/uMWfObAMaJ — Benjamin Netanyahu - בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) October 16, 2026

The exchange marked another public clash between Netanyahu and Obama. The two leaders previously confronted each other in May 2011 during an Oval Office meeting.

At that meeting, Netanyahu pushed back against Obama’s call for negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians based on Israel’s borders before 1967, with mutually agreed land swaps. Their latest dispute again put their sharply different views of Israel’s land, security, and legitimacy on public display.

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