Netanyahu calls UK an ‘Islamic republic,’ jokes it would be first one with nukes
PM echoes 2024 Vance crack during Army Radio podcast reportedly filmed at studio of a Likud vendor rather than the station’s military base
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Britain an “Islamic republic” in an interview with an Army Radio podcast released Thursday.
Netanyahu, who has long touted his admiration for Winston Churchill, noted in the podcast that the son and grandson of the World War II-era British leader were journalists who produced pro-Israel reportage on the June 1967 Six Day War.
“They came here and covered the Six Day War in a way that was very positive for us,” Netanyahu said on the bereavement-themed “Melech B’leyatzer Chayim” (King at Creating Life) podcast. “Try finding that in Britain today. What’s called ‘the Islamic Republic of Britain’.”
Haaretz reported that the podcast was filmed at the Petah Tikva studio of NVP, a production company contracted by Netanyahu’s Likud ahead of Israel’s October 27 election.
Previous episodes of the podcast were filmed at Army Radio’s headquarters in Jaffa, but Army Radio said Netanyahu’s office asked to record at NVP’s studio for security reasons, Haaretz said.
The newspaper cited an unnamed security official as saying there was no such request from the Shin Bet’s Personal Security Unit, and noted that Army Radio’s own offices are in a secure military facility.
Netanyahu on Britain:
You might call Britain the "Islamic Republic of Britain."
Someone said that the first Islamic republic with nuclear weapons will be the Islamic Republic of Britain.
We’re making sure there won’t be another one—you know, in Iran. pic.twitter.com/EmLpSvYtxu
— Clash Report (@clashreport) August 13, 2026
After Netanyahu called Britain an Islamic republic, podcast host Avi Harush, whose 20-year-old son Reef was killed fighting in Gaza in April 2024, asked whether “all of Europe isn’t already like that,” referring to the growth of Muslim communities across the continent.
Netanyahu said yes, and continued: “Someone said that the first Islamic republic with nuclear weapons will be the Islamic Republic of Britain… so we’re making sure there won’t be another one in Iran.”
(The Islamic Republic of Pakistan already possesses a nuclear arsenal.)
Netanyahu on Britain:
You might call Britain the "Islamic Republic of Britain."
Someone said that the first Islamic republic with nuclear weapons will be the Islamic Republic of Britain.
We’re making sure there won’t be another one—you know, in Iran. pic.twitter.com/EmLpSvYtxu
— Clash Report (@clashreport) August 13, 2026
US Vice President JD Vance made a similar comment at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington on July 10, 2024, days before being tapped as Donald Trump’s running mate.
UK might become ‘the first TRULY Islamist country with nuclear weapons’ – JD Vance throwing shade at Labour Party taking over
For some reason, this video from 2024 is going bonkers again pic.twitter.com/PyfWzVUoJn
— RT (@RT_com) February 19, 2025
Vance, then a US senator for Ohio, said at the time that the UK was poised to become “the first truly Islamist country with nuclear weapons” after Britain’s Labour party took power earlier that month, adding that “Pakistan already kind of counts.”
Vance has since emerged as a critic of Israel within the Trump administration, and as a skeptic of the US-Israeli war against Iran that Netanyahu lobbied Trump to launch in February.
Like the Republican White House, Netanyahu has said Europe was being taken over by Muslim immigrants.
He has argued that large Muslim populations were turning European nations against Israel, amid growing criticism from European nations — including some led by immigration skeptics — of Israel’s actions in Gaza since the Hamas onslaught in southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
The Times of Israel Community.