British lawmaker calls Israel apartheid state

A British lawmaker has described Israel as an "apartheid state" whose future is in doubt after "inflicting atrocities on Palestinians."

David Ward was not tolerated by his party and was suspended on Thursday.

Ward is a member of the Liberal Democrats, the smaller grouping in Britain's two-party coalition government.

The lawmaker sent a message on Twitter on Saturday which read: "Am I wrong or are am I right? At long last the Zionists are losing the battle - how long can the apartheid State of Israel last?"

Earlier this year, the 60-year-old wrote on his website that he was "saddened that the Jews, who suffered unbelievable levels of persecution during the Holocaust, could within a few years of liberation from the death camps, be inflicting atrocities on Palestinians".

A former college lecturer and local government official, Ward was elected in 2010 to represent a district in Bradford, a northern English city that has a large Muslim population.