Israel fury at UK attempt to arrest Tzipi Livni

[Lady Macbeth]

Tzipi Livni: "It's about time to put terrorists on trial and not those who try to stop terror"



Israel has reacted angrily to the issuing by a British court of an arrest warrant for the former Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni.

The warrant, granted by a London court on Saturday, was revoked on Monday when it was found Ms Livni was not visiting the UK.
Ms Livni was foreign minister during Israel's Gaza assault last winter.
It is the first time a UK court has issued a warrant for the arrest of a former Israeli minister.
Ms Livni said the court had been "abused" by the Palestinian plaintiffs who requested the warrant.
"What needs to be put on trial here is the abuse of the British legal system," she told the BBC.
"This is not a suit against Tzipi Livni, this is not a law suit against Israel. This is a lawsuit against any democracy that fights terror."
She stood by her decisions during the three-week assault Gaza offensive which began in December last year, she said.
Israel's foreign ministry summoned the UK's ambassador to Israel to deliver a rebuke over the warrant.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the situation was "an absurdity".
"We will not accept a situation in which [former Israeli Prime Minister] Ehud Olmert, [Defence Minister] Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni will be summoned to the defendants' chair," Mr Netanyahu said in a statement.
"We will not agree to have Israel Defence Force soldiers, who defended the citizens of Israel bravely and ethically against a cruel and criminal enemy, be recognised as war criminals. We completely reject this absurdity taking place in Britain," he said.
Pro-Palestinian campaigners have tried several times to have Israeli officials arrested under the principle of universal jurisdiction.

'Cynical act'
This allows domestic courts in countries around the world to try war crimes suspects, even if the crime took place outside the country and the suspect is not a citizen.



Israel denies claims by human rights groups and the UN investigator Richard Goldstone that its forces committed war crimes during the operation, which it said was aimed at ending Palestinian rocket fire at its southern towns.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas has also been accused of committing war crimes during the conflict.
Israel's foreign ministry said in a statement on Tuesday: "Israel rejects the cynical act taken in a British court," against Ms Livni, now the head of the opposition Kadima party, "at the initiative of extreme elements".
It called on the British government to "act against the exploitation of the British legal system against Israel".
Addressing a conference in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, Ms Livni did not refer specifically to the arrest attempt.
But she said: "Israel must do what is right for Israel, regardless of judgements, statements and arrest warrants. It's the leadership's duty, and I would repeat each and every decision," Israeli media reported.

'Strategic partner'
Israel says it fully complies with international law, which it says it interprets in line with other Western countries such as the US and UK.

On Monday Ms Livni's office denied the reports that a warrant had been issued and that she had cancelled plans to visit the UK because of fears of arrest.
It said a planned trip had been cancelled two weeks earlier because of scheduling problems.
The British foreign office said it was "urgently looking into the implications of the case".
"The UK is determined to do all it can to promote peace in the Middle East, and to be a strategic partner of Israel," it said in a statement. "To do this, Israel's leaders need to be able to come to the UK for talks with the British government."
Palestinians and human rights groups say more than 1,400 people were killed during Israel's Cast Lead operation between 27 December 2008 and 16 January 2009, more than half of them civilians.
Israel puts the number of deaths at 1,166 - fewer than 300 of them civilians. Three Israeli civilians and 10 Israeli soldiers were also killed.
The BBC's Tim Franks says that, privately, senior Israeli figures are warning of what they see as an increasing anti-Israeli bent in the British establishment.
In turn, our correspondent adds, there is clearly concern among British officials that should further arrest warrants be issued, relations with Israel could be damaged.

BBC News - Israel fury at UK attempt to arrest Tzipi Livni

[Lady Macbeth]

PREVIOUS ATTEMPTS TO ARREST ISRAELI OFFICIALS


Oct 2009: Former military chief Moshe Yaalon cancelled a UK visit because of fears of arrest for alleged war crimes




Oct 2009: Filed attempt to raise warrant against Defence Minister Ehud Barak. Court ruled he had diplomatic immunity





Sept 2005: Arrest warrant issued for a former head of Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip Gen Doron Almog. He received warning before disembarking from an aircraft at Heathrow Airport, and flew back to Israel

[Solid Beast]

Khamas and Khizballah must be having a field day with this. I just hope Israel starts dismantling tewwowism by reviewing their policies towards the Palestinians. Everything they ever dreamed of will fall into place after that.

[Lady Macbeth]

Lady Scotland opens a can of worms
The attorney general should think twice before interfering in the judicial process to stop Israelis facing arrest for war crimes



There is no denying the fact that high-ranking Israeli officials are at risk of being arrested for war crimes if they travel to the UK.

It's difficult to convey how high passions about this state of affairs run on both sides of the debate, but one thing is clear. The question of whether things should change has not so far been a question of law. The argument has been ignited and fuelled entirely by questions of politics.

The political factors are well rehearsed. Foreign Office officials describe the effect of Tzipi Livni's possible arrest for example, as highly damaging for diplomatic relations with Israel and the UK's ability to play a useful role in peace negotiations. There is undeniable embarrassment for our ministers if they are forced to look on, helpless, as their friends and colleagues from Israel languish in police custody because of a warrant which, it's true to say, would not necessarily even lead to charges being brought.

This is where the legal factors come in. That helplessness arises not from a problem with the law, but the fact that it works. The UK's independent judiciary have, on occasions at least, been applying the law irrespective of its potential for political inconvenience. Israel – whose supreme court has become a world leader in human rights jurisprudence, often to the great inconvenience of its own government – is perfectly familiar with this process. There is nothing for politicians to apologise for because, as everyone understands, the courts are a separate branch of state and not in any way under the executive's control.

So when a district judge at Westminster magistrates' court issues an arrest warrant, he or she is doing what judges do in any other case – forming a view on the evidence against the person in question, and applying the law that has been enacted by parliament.

The law in this case creates "universal jurisdiction", which enables a person to be arrested in this country for an alleged offence committed abroad. It's unfortunate that the only high-profile cases of attempted arrests for war crimes have been of Israeli officials, because the purpose of the law is to provide a means of enforcing penalties for the most serious international crimes – war crimes, torture, genocide – committed anywhere. Weakening the ability of our courts to do so would protect not only Israelis but leaders across the world, in countries whom our government is less fond of diplomatically, who have been accused of violating rights on a massive scale.

Yesterday the attorney general gave her clearest indication yet that weakening the ability of the UK's courts to enforce universal jurisdiction is exactly what the government is planning to do.

"The government is looking urgently at ways in which the UK system might be changed to avoid this situation arising again," she said, speaking at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem yesterday and referring obviously to the recent attempts to obtain a warrant for Livni and Ehud Barak. "[The government] is determined that Israel's leaders should always be able to travel freely to the UK," she added.

This announcement was unambiguously a political one – the attorney general did not in any way address the legal or constitutional implications of her assurance. But these implications are profound. What the government is suggesting is not so much changing the law, as interfering with the procedure. Instead of allowing a judge to use their discretion by deciding whether the evidence is sufficient to issue a warrant – the fundamental "safeguard" which has already prevented warrants being issued in the past, the attorney general would have to agree.

In case there is any doubt who the attorney general is, it's worth remembering that she is a cabinet member in all but name, and the government's chief legal adviser. To have such a senior member of the executive involved in the nascent stages of cases is nothing short of interference with the judicial process.

Such interference would be serious regardless of the circumstances. But the fact is, this comes at a time when there is near consensus that the direct interference of the executive in individual cases is an anathema to the rule of law. This was the verdict of the high court in the BAE case – where the attorney general's interference in a Serious Fraud Office prosecution to avoid damaging relations with Saudi Arabia was described as painting "so bleak a picture of the impotence of the law" that it "invites at least dismay, if not outrage".

Even the government acknowledges that it is not constitutionally sustainable for the attorney general to have a role in individual cases, announcing last year that the holder of the post would no longer have a direct role in all but the most sensitive for national security.

Yet here we have an attempt to give the attorney general not only increased powers to interfere in individual cases, but at an unprecedented stage of proceedings. Because when it comes to the decision as to whether charges should be brought – which is a distinct and subsequent stage to a warrant being issued – the attorney general is already required to consent.

If the government seriously wishes to advance this kind of role for the attorney general in war crimes cases, and consider the range of legal and constitutional issues this involves, then bring it on.

But for the attorney general to make off-the-cuff announcements in Israel of a purely political nature about what is in reality a serious question of domestic law, without any wider consultation in the UK … well it's where another of the attorney's job descriptions springs to mind: "guardian of the rule of law". Maybe that's the one she should focus on in future.

Lady Scotland opens a can of worms | Afua Hirsch | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

[ajpirzada]

look who is cryin foul... lolz