British Prime Minister David Cameron reiterated on Wednesday night that he was a staunch supporter of Israel and that he opposes any boycotts of the Jewish state.
Cameron and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu held a press conference ahead of their bilateral meeting, which came several hours after Cameron’s speech in the Knesset.
“Prime Minister Cameron, David, I want to welcome you to Jerusalem on a rainy night. It's not only raining rain. Unfortunately it's raining rockets on the citizens of Israel in the south of Israel,” Netanyahu said at the press conference, which came after Gaza terrorists fired a barrage of 60 rockets at southern Israel.
“You spoke in your brilliant speech in the Knesset, you spoke of the Islamic radicals that are using terror against free societies. This is precisely what is happening here,” continued Netanyahu.
“What we're seeing today is Iranian backed terror groups supplied by Iran with rockets firing at innocent civilians. This is something that no country could tolerate and I think it highlights two things. First, if we're to have a genuine peace, this cannot recur. We must have a peace in which territories adjacent to Israel are not used as launching grounds for rockets and missiles against the Jewish state.
“Secondly, we must make sure that the backer of these terrorists, Iran, doesn’t have nuclear weapons and nuclear tipped missiles. Today we're the targets, but with the ICBMs that they're developing, London would be in range, Washington would be in range. In fact, the whole world can be in range. That must not happen and I know of your commitment to prevent that happening and your commitment to help us secure and achieve a genuine peace, a peace we can defend. Without security, peace is impossible,” said Netanyahu.
Cameron, who thanked Netanyahu for his welcome, condemned the rocket fire from Gaza as he had done during his meeting with President Shimon Peres.
“These are indiscriminate attacks aimed at population centers and that tells you everything about the despicable and wicked people carrying out these acts,” said Cameron.
“We condemn them utterly. They do, as you've said, underline the importance of guaranteeing Israel's security, and any two-state solution has to have at its heart the guarantee of Israel's' safety and security and the security of your people, and let me just say again how important it is for the whole international community to say with one voice that Palestinian statehood can only come about through dialogue and discussion. It can never come about through violence or terror, which we will always condemn.
“I've also underlined to Prime Minister Netanyahu what we oppose, and that is opposing and will continue to oppose boycotts of Israel,” Cameron continued. "Young Israelis will not be persuaded to support peace by seeing their own dreams for a successful future taken away from them.
“We've also discussed already and will discuss again tonight our security cooperation and our common objective of preventing a nuclear armed Iran. I understand the concerns of those who are skeptical over any agreement over Iran's nuclear program. But as I've stressed to you before and will stress again, we will not settle for any deal. We have a clear aim to ensure the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program, not just for the sake of Israel, but as you said just now very powerfully, for the peace and security of the world. International pressure on Iran will not be lifted unless those vital concrete steps are taken.”