Netanyahu slams Livni’s arrest warrant

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Tuesday blasted a British judge’s decision to issue an arrest warrant against Kadima head Tzipi Livni, over “war crimes” committed during Operation Cast Lead.

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“We will not agree to a situation in which [former prime minister] Ehud Olmert, [Defense Minister] Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni are sitting on the defendants’ bench,” the premier said.

“We will not allow IDF soldiers and commanders, who heroically and morally defended our citizens from a cruel and criminal enemy, to be condemned as war criminals,” Netanyahu added. “We outright reject this absurdity.”

Netanyahu instructed National Security Council head Uzi Arad to relay a clear message on the issue to the British ambassador in Israel.Arad spoke with the ambassador, and told him that “the Israeli government expects the British government to act against this immoral phenomenon, which is trying to undermine Israel’s right for self-defense.”

The Foreign Ministry’s deputy director-general for Western Europe, Naor Gilon summoned British ambassador in Israel Tom Phillips for a meeting, to reprimand him over the arrest warrant.Gilon told Phillips that “you must find a solution to the problematic harassment of Israeli leaders visiting in Europe.”

How Britain would respond if arrest warrants were to be issued against former British ministers visiting abroad? Gilon asked Phillips.

Earlier Tuesday, the Foreign Ministry issued a harsh statement condemning the arrest warrant against Livni, saying these types of actions damage British-Israeli relations and if not dealt with will harm Britain’s ability to play a role in Mideast diplomacy.

The statement said that Israel rejected the “cynical” move taken in the UK courts at the behest of extremist elements in Britain and called on theBritish government “for once and for all” to keep its promises and work to prevent the manipulation by anti-Israeli elements of the British legal system against Israel.

“The lack of determined and immediate action to correct this distortion harms the relations between the two countries,” the statement read. “If Israeli leaders cannot visit Britain in a dignified manner, it will naturally be a real obstacle to Britain’s desire to have an active role in the peace process in the Middle East.”

The Foreign Ministry statement pointed out that both Israel and Britain are currently engaged in a common struggle against international terrorism, and that British soldiers are actively engaged in trying to root out terrorism on a number of different fronts around the world.

Also on Tuesday, Livni came out in defense of Operation Cast Lead, calling it a “necessary operation” that any normal country would have launched to defend its civilians.

“The operation in Gaza was necessary and was meant to restore Israel’s deterrence and did restore Israel’s deterrence,” Livni, who was foreign minister during the 2008 operation, said at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

“The fact that Israel embarked on such an operation after withdrawing from the Gaza Strip and restraining itself for years in face of rocket fire shows that it was necessary…this is what any normal country that wants to defend its civilians from terror would do,” she said.

Livni also rejected comparisons that have been made between IDF soldiers and Hamas terrorists.

“I have no problem if the world wants to judge us, but I do have a problem with them failing to apply this judgment to the entire region,” she said. “There is no place in the world except here that a comparison is made between someone who kills deliberately and someone who kills by accident.”

Israel has been trying for years to get the British government to plug a hole in its legislation that enables legal procedures to be taken against high ranking government and IDF officials visiting Britain. As the arrest warrant against Livni attests, these efforts have been largely unsuccessful.

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