Former President Barack Obama said Jews who came to the Land of Israel "took land off people and they were excessive," in remarks at a public event in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on Tuesday.
Obama made the comments during a conversation with journalist Susan McKay at The O2 arena in Belfast, part of his "An Evening With President Barack Obama" tour. Earlier in the day, he received an honorary doctorate from Queen's University Belfast.
Discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Obama began by acknowledging the history of Jewish persecution. "The fact is that the Jewish people, for millennia, were oppressed, discriminated against, killed," he said. "Europe was responsible for much of it. They understandably sought a refuge. That is undeniable."
He then added: "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.'"
The remarks drew sharp criticism from supporters of Israel, who said they present a distorted version of the country's history. Before Israel's founding, a lot of the land acquired by Jews was purchased legally, often from absentee Arab landowners and frequently at inflated prices. Israel's founding in 1948 also followed the Arab rejection of the UN partition plan and the invasion of the new state by neighboring Arab armies.
Obama also criticized the Israeli government, saying that if Israel's position is that, as the strongest power in the region, it can take what it wants without making concessions, "you have ceded moral ground." He said "the current Israeli government appears to have taken that" position and argued it must recognize that "7 million Palestinians are not going anywhere."
He also addressed the Palestinian side, saying they must accept that Israel is strong and adopt a strategy "that is not premised on beating their military." Of Hamas' October 7 massacre, he said, "you could not have designed something that was less likely to produce meaningful change."
The Belfast event came days after Obama recorded an ad backing Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan's Democratic Senate primary.
