British deputy PM: If Netanyahu rejects two-state solution, U.K. will recognize Palestine

If Netanyahu rules out a Palestinian state and expands West Bank settlements, ‘the world, including the British parliament, would have no option, but to recognize a Palestinian state,’ says Nick Clegg.

HAARETZ

British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for reneging support for a two-state solution, saying that if the Israeli leader does not backtrack from those remarks, Britain would have no choice but to recognize a Palestinian state.

Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, called Netanyahu’s vow not to create a Palestinian state “alarming,” the Guardian reported Thursday.

Netanyahu, while campaigning Monday, said that if he were to be reelected, a Palestinian state would not be created, in a definite disavowal of his 2009 speech, in which he had voiced support for the principle of two states for two peoples.

Netanyahu has since been criticized for those remarks, and also for warning that Arabs were heading to the voting booths “in droves,” by U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders.

Clegg said he shared Obama’s view, during his weekly radio show. “It is extremely worrying – it cannot be more alarming – to have seen [Benjamin] Netanyahu do something which no leading Israeli politician has ever done; to rule out the prospect of a two-state solution.”

He added that if Netanyahu continued to rule out a Palestinian state and expanded West Bank settlements, “the world, including the British parliament, would have no option, inevitably, but to recognize a Palestinian state.”

Clegg said a formal move to recognize Palestine would result from “extreme provocation from Netanyahu.”

British Prime Minister David Cameron, meanwhile, congratulated Netanyahu on his reelection, tweeting “PM: Congratulations to @netanyahu on election result. As one of #Israel’s firmest friends, UK looks forward to working with new government.”

Last October, the British parliament overwhelmingly voted in favor of a nonbinding resolution to recognize the state of Palestine alongside Israel.