The deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, has condemned as “crass, stupid and insensitive” comments made by the Liberal Democrat MP David Ward on the presence of the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, at the solidarity march in Paris on Sunday, but he stopped short of calling the remarks racist.
Speaking on his weekly phone-in show on LBC radio, Clegg said Ward “clearly doesn’t speak for the party on this at all and I cannot be more unambiguous in condemning what I think is a highly insensitive way of behaving.”
During the march, which followed last week’s terror attacks in the French capital that left 17 people dead, the Lib Dem MP for Bradford East tweeted: “#Netanyahu in Paris march – what!!! Makes me feel sick” and “Je suis #Palestinian.”
Clegg said: “I think him saying he doesn’t want to see Netanyahu on the streets of Paris is a stupid thing to say because Prime Minister Netanyahu, whatever you think of him or his government, has the right as the head of the government of Israel to participate in that demonstration along with many other world leaders. But do I think it was a racist thing to say? No.”
Clegg admitted that he had not spoken to Ward personally about the comments and said that, although Ward “has a long record of blurting these things out”, he would not be asked to apologise as his remarks did not “topple into racist commentary”.
“We’ve just spoken about freedom of speech,” said Clegg, “and I’m not in the business – if somebody feels passionately about the plight of the people of Gaza – to say they can’t express their views. I think he’s perfectly entitled to do so.”
Ward has a record of causing controversy with his remarks on Israel. In 2013, he was reprimanded by his party for “use of language” after he compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to the Holocaust. Later that year, he was suspended by the Lib Dems and had the whip withdrawn for two months for tweeting: “Am I wrong or am I right? At long last the Zionists are losing the battle – how long can the apartheid State of Israel last?”
In July last year, the Lib Dems threatened Ward with disciplinary action and he was forced to issue an apology after he said he would probably fire a rocket into Israel if he lived in Gaza. Ward said his comments were “not in support of firing rockets into Israel” and he was sorry “if they gave the opposite impression”.
On Wednesday the Israeli ambassador to Britain wrote to the Liberal Democrat leader to express his abhorrence at the “offensive and shocking” comments.
In the letter to the deputy prime minister, ambassador Daniel Taub wrote: “At a time when leaders were united in condemnation of extremist atrocities, Mr Ward’s statement is a disgraceful attempt to politicise suffering, de-legitimise Israel, and justify acts of terror.
“It also exhibits a callous disregard for the Jews of France, many of whom look to Israel as they are increasingly targeted merely because of their religion.”
Taub said that “more shocking still is the continued impunity that [Ward] seems to enjoy from his party”.
A Liberal Democrat spokesperson said the MP did not speak for the party and that his tweet was “clearly in bad taste”.
“The Liberal Democrats believe fundamentally in the values of tolerance, openness and compassion, values that have been reaffirmed in the last week in the response of millions to the terrorist attacks in France.”
The spokesperson added: “Our sympathies are with the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives and were caught up in those horrific attacks. Now is a time for us to come together in solidarity and in defence of the freedoms that we hold dear.”
