Paris /PNN /

 An Israeli extremist minister has claimed that ‘there’s no such a thing as Palestinians and Palestinian people,’ weeks after he demanded that Palestinian town of Huwara be wiped out.

Delivering a speech in Paris at a private memorial service, Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that the notion of a Palestinian state was “artificial.”

“There is no such thing as a Palestinian nation. There is no Palestinian history. There is no Palestinian language,” he claimed on Sunday.

His remarks were met with applause and cheers from the crowd.

This isn’t the first time Smotrich makes horrible remarks about Palestinians. Two weeks ago, he said that Huwara, a town in the northern West Bank, must be “wiped out.”

The US State Department condemned Smotrich’s comments and said the remarks were "repugnant, irresponsible and disgusting."

US State Department spokesman Ned Price called on Netanyahu and other top officials to "publicly and clearly" disavow Smotrich's comments.

"I want to be very clear about this. These comments were irresponsible. They were repugnant. They were disgusting," Price told reporters last week.

He added that Smotrich’s “provocative” remarks “amount to incitement to violence.”