UK rejects Netanyahu's 'Islamic republic' Britain remark

Britain criticised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday after he referred to the country as an “Islamic republic” while attacking the UK's stance on Israel.

“These comments are completely unacceptable and we have raised them with the Israeli Government,” a UK government spokesman said.

Netanyahu made the remark in an army radio podcast interview on Thursday. Referring to Winston Churchill's grandson and namesake supporting Israel during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, Netanyahu asked: “Would you find that now?”

He added: “Someone once said that the first Islamic republic with nuclear weapons would be the Islamic republic of Britain.”

Israeli government spokesman David Mencer appeared to downplay the remarks in a BBC radio interview, saying Netanyahu was quoting comments previously made by US Vice President JD Vance.

Vance told the Munich Security Summit in 2024 that the UK could become “the first truly Islamist country that will get a nuclear weapon”, drawing a rebuke from senior UK politicians at the time.

Britain was one of several European countries that recognised Palestinian statehood last year, angering Israel. Britain's prime minister, Andy Burnham, has said his predecessor Keir Starmer did not put enough pressure on Israel to halt its offensive in Gaza.

Before taking office, Burnham told The Guardian that Britain would consider banning trade in goods from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.

Britain has also kept its distance from the US-Israeli war launched in February against Iran. Netanyahu has long vowed to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, a goal Tehran denies pursuing.

Britain and the United States are nuclear powers. Israel is widely known to have atomic weapons but has never publicly acknowledged its arsenal.