{"id":14919,"date":"2026-08-14T18:53:03","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T15:53:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/?p=14919"},"modified":"2026-08-14T18:53:03","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T15:53:03","slug":"netanyahu-brands-uk-islamic-republic-of-britain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/netanyahu-brands-uk-islamic-republic-of-britain\/","title":{"rendered":"Netanyahu Brands UK &#8216;Islamic Republic of Britain&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The remarks, made on 13 August 2026 during an appearance on the Israeli military radio podcast Melech Blitzer Haim, represent a sharp escalation in rhetoric from the Israeli leader toward one of Britain&#8217;s traditional allies, according to <em>Brussels Signal<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Benjamin Netanyahu<\/strong> appeared on the bereavement-focused programme hosted by <strong>Avi Harush<\/strong>, a former Israeli military officer whose son was killed in combat in Gaza. During the conversation, Netanyahu drew a pointed contrast between historical British support for Israel and what he characterised as the current state of affairs.<\/p>\n<blockquote data-service=\"twitter\" data-category=\"marketing\" data-placeholder-image=\"https:\/\/brusselssignal.eu\/content\/plugins\/complianz-gdpr\/assets\/images\/placeholders\/twitter-minimal.jpg\" class=\"cmplz-placeholder-element twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">VIDEO: Israeli PM Netanyahu on Britain:<\/p>\n<p>You might call Britain the &quot;Islamic Republic of Britain.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Someone said that the first Islamic republic with nuclear weapons will be the Islamic Republic of Britain.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re making sure there won\u2019t be another one&#8211;you know, in Iran. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/WP6qQGlTud\">pic.twitter.com\/WP6qQGlTud<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Open Source Intel (@Osint613) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Osint613\/status\/2087892801967063316?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 13, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The Prime Minister recalled that both the son and grandson of wartime British leader Winston Churchill worked as journalists and covered the 1967 Six-Day War with reporting that was &#8220;very positive for us&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><em>Try finding that in Britain today,<\/em> Netanyahu remarked, before adding his barbed description of the nation as the &#8220;Islamic Republic of Britain&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>When Harush suggested that much of Europe had shifted in a similar direction, Netanyahu went further, stating that someone had predicted Britain would become the first Islamic republic to possess nuclear weapons. He then pivoted to his longstanding foreign policy priority: &#8220;We are making sure there won&#8217;t be another one here, in Iran.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The language echoes earlier comments from <strong>JD Vance<\/strong>, then a US senator, who speculated at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington on 11 July 2024 that Britain under Labour governance could become the first &#8220;truly Islamist country&#8221; with nuclear capability.<\/p>\n<p>The podcast was not recorded at the standard facilities of Army Radio, but rather at a studio in Petah Tikva run by New Vision Production, a firm that has provided services to Netanyahu&#8217;s Likud party in the lead-up to Israel&#8217;s October election, as <em>Brussels Signal<\/em> reports.<\/p>\n<p>The timing of Netanyahu&#8217;s remarks comes amid deteriorating relations between Jerusalem and London, particularly over the British Labour government&#8217;s stance on the Gaza conflict and broader diplomatic frictions.<\/p>\n<p>Reaction in Britain has been swift, with broadcaster <strong>Piers Morgan<\/strong> among those publicly condemning the Israeli Prime Minister&#8217;s characterisation. Even within Israel, some opposition voices have questioned the strategic wisdom of mocking a permanent member of the UN Security Council that has historically been aligned with Israeli interests.<\/p>\n<p>Netanyahu has consistently placed the prevention of a nuclear-armed Iran at the centre of Israeli national security policy. Pakistan currently remains the only Muslim-majority nation in possession of nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:right\"><em>With information from <a href=\"https:\/\/brusselssignal.eu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Brussels Signal<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described Britain as the &#8220;Islamic Republic of Britain&#8221; in a podcast interview, warning it could become the first nuclear-armed Islamic state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":14918,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[173,11687,11686,279,11685,2733,48],"nfg_topic":[135],"class_list":["post-14919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-diplomatic-controversy","tag-islamic-rhetoric","tag-israel","tag-israeli-british-relations","tag-nuclear-weapons","tag-united-kingdom","nfg_topic-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14919"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14922,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14919\/revisions\/14922"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14919"},{"taxonomy":"nfg_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/nfg_topic?post=14919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}