Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he is fighting a “battle for civilisation against barbarism” and accused the United Kingdom of “rewarding” Hamas for the October 7th attack by recognising Palestine.
Hamas committed the “greatest savagery against Jews since the Holocaust”, yet the British government of Labour Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is planning to “reward” the terror group with a “de facto state” by recognising Palestine, something he wouldn’t dream of doing if the tables were turned, Netanyahu told UK-based TRIGGERnometry podcast co-hosted by Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster.
Building a hypothetical attack scenario where Hamas killed a proportional part of the British population in an attack as they had in Israel, which he said is “tiny, the size of Wales”, Netanyahu asked: “Let’s imagine, what would be the response of Britain if in your case about 15,000 people, or 10,000 people would be butchered in one day. And you’d have, I don’t know, 2,500 hostages taken. You know, would you say, ‘Oh, well, we should give our attackers a state right next to London?’ Of course not.”
He continued, expanding the example from an Israel of ten million people to the United States with 340 million and saying: “What would the Americans say if they had 50,000 Americans butchered, and thousands and thousands of Americans taken hostage. Obviously they’d say no, we’re not going to give them a state… right in Manhattan. It’s ridiculous. The standard that is being applied is not merely wrong, it’s just downright dangerous. Because you’re really rewarding these monstrous terrorists with the greatest prize and that’s because of weakness. It’s weakness in the face of distorted media, packed social networks, packed with bought bots.”
Again directly addressing UK Prime Minister Starmer, Netanyahu asked: “You should ask Keir Starmer, here’s a suggestion. What do these protesters say about Britain?… [Hamas supporters] burn Israeli flags, they burn American flags, and they burn the UK flag. They are basically a hostile minority supporting monstrosities, and I think it’s shameful the way Western leaders in Britain, in France, in Canada, New Zealand, the way they buckle under. Europe has gone through the destruction of the Jews, 80 years later that’s what they have to say? They attack the Jewish state, and they give a price to those who would destroy the one and only Jewish state? Shameful.”
Israel is fighting a battle for their own survival but also “fighting the battle for civilisation against barbarism”, even if Western nations refuse to acknowledge that, Netanyahu told the podcast. On the UK’s response to Israel fighting, he added, caustically: “the Prime Minister of Britain says we will reward you with a de facto state which is committed openly to repeating the October 7 massacre over, and over and over, again. They say they recognise Israel’s right to defend itself, they always add that… they recognise Israel’s right to defend itself as long as Israel doesn’t’ exercise that right”.
Sir Keir Starmer said in July that he would recognise Palestine as a state in September alongside France, citing his desire for a “two-state solution”, and unless Israel takes “substantive” steps to improve “appalling” conditions in Gaza. Netanyahu has rejected these claims, asserting that Israel is held to an impossibly high double standard compared to other conflicts.
At the time of Starmer’s July declaration the Israeli government rejected the UK’s claims, stating he had chosen to speak out because of “internal political pressures” — the Muslim voting bloc that has been essential to Labour’s electoral fortunes for years — and saying the UK was rewarding Hamas. President Trump used similar language, saying then: “If you do that, you really are rewarding Hamas”.
