Brown vows to stand by Israel

GORDON Brown has warned Iran that it faces growing isolation if it rejects an offer from major powers on its disputed nuclear programme.

In the first address to Israel's parliament, the Knesset, by a British prime minister, Mr Brown yesterday pledged to stand by Israel and branded threats by Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to wipe the country off the map as "totally abhorrent".

The speaker of the parliament, Dalia Itzik, earlier said it was unbelievable that 63 years after the Holocaust, "we are again facing the threat of extermination from the Iranians, with whom we have no conflict".

Mr Brown said: "Iran has a clear choice to make: suspend its nuclear programme and accept our offer of negotiations or face growing isolation and the collective response not just of one nation, but of all nations around the world."

He said Britain, which as a permanent member of the UN Security Council has helped to push through three sanctions resolutions against Iran, "will continue to lead … in our determination to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapons programme".

The speech comes after a senior Iranian official was quoted this month as saying Iran would destroy Israel and 32 US military bases in the Middle East if the Islamic republic was attacked.

Israel considers Iran its most dangerous enemy. It does not believe Iran's claims that its nuclear programme is peaceful and takes seriously Mr Ahmadinejad's repeated calls to wipe the Jewish state off the map.

Along with Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China have also offered Iran financial and diplomatic incentives to halt nuclear activity, which it is feared is a cover for making bombs.

The United States has refused to rule out military action if diplomacy fails to resolve the nuclear row. However, Tehran says its programme is aimed solely at generating electricity.

After talks in Geneva ended in stalemate on Saturday, the six major powers gave Iran a two -week deadline to answer calls to rein in its nuclear activities or face tougher sanctions.

Government officials accompanying Mr Brown said that if Iran did not accept the incentives, the next step would be to ratchet up sanctions, possibly including on the oil and gas industry.

Mr Brown, who began his speech with the Hebrew phrase for "peace be with you", received a standing ovation. He said a historic peace with the Palestinians was within Israel's grasp and urged Israel to freeze the expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and to withdraw from them in a future peace deal.

He described the current leadership of the Palestinian Authority as the best partner Israel has had for peace in a generation, and said it must fulfil its security obligations. Mr Brown spoke of the "deep affection for Israel" instilled in him as a child by his father, a Church of Scotland minister who spoke Hebrew and led groups of pilgrims to the Holy Land.

"For the whole of my life, I have counted myself as a friend of Israel," the Prime Minister said, pledging to bring his own young children on a visit in their grandfather's footsteps.

Challenging one of Israel's sacred precepts from the heart of its legislature, Mr Brown said that peace should be built on the principle of an independent Palestinian state living peacefully alongside Israel, "with Jerusalem the capital for both".

Israel captured east Jerusalem, where more than 200,000 Palestinians live, in the 1967 Middle East war and swiftly annexed it, declaring the entire city its "eternal and indivisible" capital.

Jerusalem is on the table in the current US-backed negotiations on so-called final status issues in the six-decade conflict.

Welcoming Mr Brown to the Knesset, Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime minister, said that after eight months of peace talks with the Palestinians, major gaps remained.

He said: "There are still deep disagreements on decisive issues, but they can be bridged."