Europe-Funded Group Boasts About Obtaining Arrest Warrant For Livni
Tzipi Livni Image by getty images
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — An organization that allocates European funding to Palestinian human rights groups boasted of initiating war crimes charges in Britain against Tzipi Livni, Israel’s former foreign minister.
The Ramallah-based Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Secretariat — a platform created by the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland – noted in its 2016 annual report of the legal troubles its “partners” gave Livni as an example of how it is “influencing duty bearers and building accountability.”
“In response to joint work between partners and pressure from international bodies, a British judge issued an arrest warrant for Tzipi Livni,” read the report, which was compiled in August and published sometime last month. “Scotland Yard’s War Crimes Unit transmitted a letter to the Israeli Embassy in London inviting Tzipi Livni to a police interview under caution in relation to her role” in the 2014 Operation Cast Lead operation by the Israel Defense Forces against Hamas in Gaza.
In the Netherlands, prosecutors have dismissed war crimes complaints against Israeli politicians as unfounded or beyond the jurisdiction of the Dutch judiciary.
In 2011, following repeated attempts to prosecute Israelis including Livni, Britain’s parliament passed an amendment that says that the director of public prosecutions must agree to issue an arrest warrant in universal jurisdiction cases in which the alleged crimes were committed outside of Britain. This means political considerations also will be taken into account.
Israel has dismissed allegations that it committed war crimes in Gaza and beyond.
Shaun Sacks, a researcher for NGO Monitor, an Israel-based nongovernmental organization, accused the Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Secretariat of ”abusing public funds to perpetuate conflict.”
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
