Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has mocked the UK as the “Islamic Republic of Britain”.
Speaking on a podcast to Avi Harush, a former military officer who lost his son in combat in Gaza, Mr Netanyahu said he had met Winston Churchill’s grandson, who supported Israel.
“Just try to find that kind of attitude in Britain now – or in what’s known as ‘The Islamic Republic of Britain’. You won’t find it,” he jabbed.
The Israeli Prime Minister then joked his country was at war with Iran to prevent a “second” Islamic country obtaining nuclear weapons.
“Someone said – you know – that the first Islamic republic with nuclear weapons will be the Islamic Republic of Britain,” he said.
“We’re making sure there won’t be another one like that in Iran.”
In 2024, JD Vance said the UK would be the first “truly Islamist country that will get a nuclear weapon” at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington DC.
Angela Rayner, then the Deputy Prime Minister, rejected Mr Vance’s warning, saying he had said “quite a lot of fruity things in the past”.
Tensions between Britain and Israel have only increased in the wake of Labour’s election victory.
While relations remained strong under Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Government in the immediate aftermath of the war, Britain recognised the state of Palestine under Sir Keir Starmer.
Mr Netanyahu said the former Prime Minister was rewarding Hamas’s terrorism as a result.
Andy Burnham said in a video statement in July that Labour “didn’t get it right” in its response to the Gaza conflict.
“Labour’s initial response to the treatment of Gaza caused huge hurt. We got it wrong and I am sorry for that,” he said.
The now-Prime Minister called for a ceasefire in late October 2023 – a position which, at the time, left him at odds with Sir Keir.
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Mr Burnham’s Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband held talks with Israeli counterpart Gideon Sa’ar just days ago.
Mr Sa’ar, in his readout of the call, said he “emphasised the importance Israel attaches to our relationship with Britain and my hope for a more productive dialogue between our countries”.
“I welcomed the British Government’s decision to proscribe the IRGC,” the Israeli Foreign Minister said.
“I also said that the extremist regime in Iran hasn’t given up achieving nuclear weapons,” he added, and said he “made it clear that progress in the implementation of President Trump’s plan for Gaza is dependant on the disarmament of Hamas and other terror groups and the demilitarisation of the Strip.”
Last month, Donald Trump and his Board of Peace announced that Hamas had agreed to a “complete disarmament“, the first step of a 15-point plan for Gaza.
But Mr Netanyahu has since rejected the plans, saying Israel’s military would not withdraw from Gaza “until Hamas is genuinely disarmed and will continue to thwart threats against our forces and our citizens”.
Hamas officials have insisted the terrorist group is ready “to engage seriously and responsibly in implementing” the proposed peace deal.
Podcast host Mr Harush rose to prominence after his son Reef died in Gaza – then had his sperm retrieved and frozen.
But Israeli law does not allow for frozen posthumous sperm to be used by anyone other than a female partner – which Reef did not have at the time of his death.
He told The Times in 2024: “A lot of women come to me to offer themselves on Facebook and Instagram.
“Since I wrote on Facebook, 28 women have offered themselves up who want to be the mother of Reef’s child.”
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