Ahmed Tibi
Ahmed TibiFlash 90

Despite being a citizen of Israel and a member of the Israeli Knesset, radical Arab MK Ahmed Tibi (United Arab List) is in London on Monday to take part in a diplomatic push urging the British parliament to recognize "Palestine" in a non-binding vote.

Tibi is talking with British MPs of the Labor party, whose member Grahame Morris proposed the vote, and trying to convince them that voting to recognize the Palestinian Authority (PA) as a state will advance the "peace process."

In fact, the Labor party is reportedly highly divided over the vote, with many senior members of the party holding an internal revolt and refusing to follow orders to vote for recognition by boycotting the session.

"To say that there is a row going on it putting it very mildly," said one senior Labor MP of the vote. "People are furious. This is an attempt to rip up 13 years of carefully calibrated policy. It total madness and makes the prospect of peace less rather than more likely."

The British vote comes after Sweden made a storm by pledging its commitment to recognize a Palestinian state two weeks ago on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. Israeli experts have warned the UK vote may be a sign of increasing diplomatic warfare against Israel in Europe.

Morris, who initiated the vote, said "if the vote is a success it would put a tremendous amount of pressure on the current government and the next government, which is likely to be a Labor government, to recognize Palestine as a state," indicating the vote may become official policy if Labor gains control in elections next year.

This is not the first time Tibi has used his position in the Knesset to attack Israel.

In June he said the Hamas terror group in Gaza is "not a terror organization," just shortly before it launched a terror war on Israel causing Operation Protective Edge, and amid the abduction and murder of three Israeli teens Naftali Frenkel, Eyal Yifrah and Gilad Sha'ar hy''d by Hamas terrorists.

Regarding those terrorists who murdered the three Israeli teens, Tibi likewise refused to call them terrorists. In that, he followed the footsteps of MK Hanin Zoabi (Balad), who eventually was banned from the Knesset for six months after raising outrage by saying the murderers were not terrorists.

Following the recent counter-terror Gaza operation, Tibi called on the attorney general to investigate the prime minister and defense minister for "war crimes."