Israel Condemns British Arrest Warrant for Former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni

From CNN, "Israel condemns 'absurd' UK arrest warrant for Livni":

A British court's decision to issue an arrest warrant for former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is "absurd," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday.

Details of the arrest warrant were not immediately available -- news reports said it has been revoked -- but the prime minister denounced attempts to label Israeli officials as "war criminals."

"We will not accept that (Israeli) soldiers and commanders that bravely and morally defended our citizens from a cruel enemy will be called war criminals," he said. "We reject this as absurd."

Livni was Israel's foreign minister during the Israeli military offensive in Gaza a year ago. The United Nations and some human-rights groups have blamed Israel and Hamas for human rights abuses during the conflict.

Israeli National Security Adviser Uzi Arad told the British ambassador "that the state of Israel expects that the government of Britain act against this immoral phenomenon that attempts to hamper Israel's right to defend herself," Netanyahu said in a statement.

Netanyahu said Israel "will not accept a situation" in which Livni, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert "will be summoned to the dock."

Olmert was prime minister during Israel's three-week offensive against Hamas in Gaza a year ago.

Britain's Foreign Office said the United Kingdom was not trying to hamper the peace process.

"The UK is determined to do all it can to promote peace in the Middle East, and to be a strategic partner of Israel," the Foreign Office 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. We are looking urgently at the implications of this case."

It was not clear who sought the warrant from Westminster Magistrates Court. A Foreign Office spokesman said the warrant did not require ministerial approval; it was issued at the court's discretion.

Actually, radical Palestinians requested the warrant:

Pro-Palestinian campaigners have tried several times to have Israeli officials arrested under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which holds that some alleged crimes are so grave that they can be tried anywhere, regardless of where the offences were committed.

Ms Livni was foreign minister during Israel's Gaza assault last winter.

She said the court had been "abused" by the Palestinian plaintiffs who requested the warrant.

This is a classic example of what happens when the world shifts to global governance and supranational legal authority.

Our neo-communist pals at "Hammering" Jane Hamsher's explain, "War Crimes Catch Up With Israeli Officials: They Can No Longer Visit The UK":

Countries which consider themselves to be intrinsically ‘exceptional’ — immune from obeying international laws, and thumb their noses at allegations as serious as war crimes — will naturally become viewed as pariah states.

Now if we could just get someone to investigate Bush Administration war crimes ...