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.”
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
