Israeli leaders and senior military officers can breathe more easily after the U.K. on Thursday completed its amendment of a law that had threatened visiting Israeli officials. The amendment, which took more than two years to complete, now prevents arrest warrants from being issued against visiting Israeli officials without the approval of the attorney-general. Previously, any British judge could issue an arrest warrant for a visiting official accused of war crimes. Israeli political and military leaders will now be able to visit the country again without fear of arrest
“The Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act, which has now received royal assent, includes an important amendment to ensure that the U.K.’s justice system can no longer be abused for political reasons,” British Ambassador to Israel Matthew Gould said Thursday in an official statement published on the British Embassy's website. “The change will ensure that people cannot be detained when there is no realistic chance of prosecution, while ensuring that we continue to honor our international obligations ... This amendment requires the Director of Public Prosecutions to consent to the issuing of an arrest warrant for crimes of universal jurisdiction, and will put an end to requests for warrants where there is no realistic chance of prosecution.”
The amendment essentially prevents the filing of lawsuits in courts across the U.K. against visitors to the country who have been accused of war crimes. An arrest warrant will now only be issued with the approval of the attorney-general. The amendment halts efforts by pro-Palestinian organizations to target Israel through the British legal system and to pursue Israeli military officers and leaders.
Gould told Israel Hayom that then British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had made a promise to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu two and a half years ago that the law would be changed, and this had now been done. The final, formal approval of the amendment was made Thursday by Queen Elizabeth herself. “Senior Israeli officials can now travel safely to Britain,” the ambassador told Israel Hayom.
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The legal issue arose in 2005 when a group of local lawyers attempted to detain Maj. Gen. (res.) Doron Almog, who had been planning to visit several Jewish communities in the U.K. The lawyers filed a complaint accusing Almog of war crimes following his directive as Southern Command head in 2002 to demolish 50 Palestinian houses in Gaza. Almog, tipped off that British police officers were waiting to arrest him the minute he stepped off the plane, remained on board and left the country on the same plane.
According to the pro-Palestinian lawyers who filed the complaint, Almog ordered the demolition of the Palestinian homes as an act of retaliation for terrorist attacks, and they claimed he violated international law protecting civilian property in times of war. Since then, pro-Palestinian organizations have tried to use the Universal Jurisdiction loophole in British law to have Israeli military and political leaders arrested.
After the U.K. made the announcement that the law had been amended, Gould called opposition leader Tzipi Livni, the last Israeli politician to escape arrest in the U.K. for her involvement in Operation Cast Lead.
“I'm glad the arrest warrant issued against me opened the eyes of the British and put an end to the cynical exploitation of the British legal system to target Israel Defense Forces commanders and soldiers,” Livni said. “True justice has been served and it will distinguish between those leaders and army officers, like the IDF, who protect their country against terror, and those real war criminals who the law serves to prosecute.”
Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary William Hague on Thursday announced his country's withdrawal from a U.N. event marking the 10th anniversary of the Durban World Conference on Racism.
“That conference, and the anti-Semitic atmosphere in which it was held, was a particularly unpleasant and divisive chapter in the U.N.'s history. It is not an event that should be celebrated,” Hague said in a statement.
The conference sparked controversy in 2001 after attempts by Arab countries to label Israel as a racist state prompted a walk-out by U.S. and Israeli representatives.
During the 2009 conference in Geneva, a commotion also ensued when several representatives walked out after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Israel a “cruel and repressive racist regime.”
