We too have felt grief of terror, Brown tells Israelis

In the first address by a British prime minister to the Knesset, Mr Brown vowed to stand by Israel and hit out at Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for calling for it to be wiped off the map and for refusing to give up his country's nuclear bomb ambitions.

"The British people see the threat your people encounter every day when they climb aboard a bus, have a cup of coffee at the café, or buy a sandwich," he told the Israeli parliament.

"In our homeland - two thousand miles from your streets - we too have learned the grief when lives are lost through terror on a bus or at the airport or on a crowded Underground train."

He stepped up pressure on Iran to abandon its attempts to obtain the nuclear bomb. The Prime Minister said oil and gas production could become the target of sanctions and expressed "total abhorrence" at Iranian threats to destroy the Jewish state.

"Iran now has a clear choice to make - suspend its nuclear programme and accept our offer of negotiations or face growing isolation," he said, adding: "It is totally abhorrent for the president of Iran to call for Israel to be wiped from the map of the world."

The Prime Minister, on the last day of his trip to the Middle East, urged the Palestinians to act "with persistence" against terrorists and for Israel to "freeze and withdraw" from settlements in Palestinian territories,