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U.K. Pledges to Prevent Future War-Crimes Charges

Israel is angry, Britain apologetic after attempted Livni arrest

by
Marc Tracy
December 16, 2009
Brown in London yesterday.(Matthew Lloyd - WPA Pool/Getty Images)
Brown in London yesterday.(Matthew Lloyd - WPA Pool/Getty Images)

Prime Minister Gordon Brown called Tzipi Livni, the Israeli opposition leader, to tell her she was “most welcome” on his fair isle despite that time a few days ago when a British judge issued an arrest warrant for her on war-crimes charges stemming from last January’s Gaza conflict. Additionally, Britain is “urgently” examining how to prevent such an incident from ever happening again. On the Israeli side, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman gave his British counterpart, David Miliband, a piece of his mind over the phone (that must have been fun for Miliband), while Britain’s ambassador to Israel was summoned and rebuked in person (that must have been even more fun). The British government’s unequivocal atonement here, while commendable, was entirely predictable. What will be more interesting to see is if Britain’s Labor leadership is forced to pay for it domestically: there is, after all, something of a constituency there that saw the Livni warrant as a positive step. And a general election, which the opposition Tories are favored to win, will take place in the spring… .

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.