David Ward, a British Member of Parliament, sparked a wave of condemnation yesterday after tweeting that if he lived in Gaza he would “probably” also fire rockets at Israel. Much of the world has acknowledged that the Hamas rockets hurtling towards Israeli cities constitute war crimes, since they are fired indiscriminately at civilians and from civilian areas.

Ward initially refused to apologize for his remarks; an hour later, he followed up with an inexplicably German tweet saying, “Ich bin ein ‪#palestinian”. However, he apologized for his remarks earlier today. Ward had previously been suspended from his party, the Liberal Democrats, for three months last year after questioning the existence of the State of Israel.

UK Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, also blasted Israel’s actions in Gaza as being “deliberately disproportionate.” Nonetheless, the party released a statement aiming to distance themselves from Ward’s comments:

Nick Clegg has been at the forefront of calling for peace in Israel and Gaza. We utterly condemn David Ward’s comments, they are not representative of the Liberal Democrats. The party takes this matter very seriously and will treat it as a disciplinary issue.

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