Israel Sees Pattern of Hostility Emerging in Britain

LONDON (Dec. 15) -- Israel's relationship with Britain hit a new low Tuesday when it was revealed that a London judge had issued an arrest warrant for former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni over her role in the Gaza invasion earlier this year. The warrant has embarrassed Britain's government, led Israel to warn that its relations with the United Kingdom are under threat and made some leading British Jews worry that hostility against Israel is rising in the country.

"This is part of a generally deteriorating atmosphere toward Israel," says Andrew Balcombe, chairman of the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland. "I don't know a time in the last 40 years when Britain has been as openly anti-Israel as it is today."

The warrant on Livni, now head of the opposition Kadima Party, was reportedly requested by British lawyers representing Gaza residents. They allege that as a member of the Cabinet during Operation Cast Lead last winter -- which Palestinians say left 1,400 people, mostly civilians, dead -- she is accountable for alleged war crimes carried out by the Israeli Defense Force. However, as Livni canceled her trip at the last minute, the warrant was eventually retracted. Livni says she called off the trip because she failed to secure a meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, not because of the warrant.

Israel, unsurprisingly, has been outraged by the court order. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was absurd that leaders and army officers "who defended our civilians bravely and morally against a despicable and brutal enemy could be branded war criminals." The Israeli government also demanded that the U.K. amend its 1988 Criminal Justice Act -- which gives courts in England and Wales universal jurisdiction in war crimes cases -- warning, "The absence of resolute and immediate action to redress this distortion harms relations between the two countries."

That controversial law was last used by activists in September, when they attempted to secure the arrest of Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak during a visit to Britain. However, Britain's Foreign Office blocked that request, stating that as a serving minister, Barak had diplomatic immunity. The Foreign Office also promised to launch an urgent investigation into the latest case, saying, "The U.K. is determined to do all it can to promote peace in the Middle East and to be a strategic partner of Israel. To do this, Israel's leaders need to be able to come to the U.K. for talks with the British government."

These repeated attempts to arrest Israeli officials, says the Zionist Federation's Balcombe, "smack of anti-Semitism ... because they're so out of proportion as to what has, or is claimed to have, gone on in Gaza. Nobody focuses on the fact that in the past year 160,000 Christians have been murdered around the world because of their faith. And few people are concentrating on what's happening in Darfur."

However, British pro-Palestinian groups say there is no conspiracy to focus attention on Israel; it's simply that campaigners for other causes aren't as outspoken. "Anybody who has committed a war crime, wherever they're from, should be tried and face justice," says Ismail Patel of the Leicester-based Friends of Al Aqsa. "Groups championing the causes of other peoples and regions should also seek justice through the courts."

The anti-Israel movement, though, does seem to possess a certain fashionable edge that other British campaign groups lack. While the plight of Tibetans, Kashmiris or Chechens receives little attention in Britain, barely a week passes without a new high-profile campaign against Israel.

Between 2002 and 2007, for example, Britain's main university teachers' unions repeatedly attempted to stop all academic and cultural cooperation with Israeli universities, in protest at the country's actions in the occupied territories. And last week, the British government issued new guidelines on goods from the West Bank, which suggested supermarkets use clearer labels stating whether the item was "Israeli settlement produce" or "Palestinian produce." The new guidelines were the result of a concerted crusade by several nongovernmental organizations -- including Oxfam and War on Want -- and pro-Palestinian organizations, who said consumers should be able to chose whether or not to buy goods from settlements regarded as illegal by the U.K. and the European Union.

That labeling campaign, say pro-Israel groups, is evidence that the Jewish state is being singled out. "It's certainly the case that some very extreme campaigners pursue Israel with a greater degree of vigor than they do other countries," says Arieh Kovler, a spokesman for the Fair Play Campaign Group, which campaigns against boycotts of Israeli goods. "Mainstream NGOs like Oxfam have not pursued the same labeling regime for Tibet or even Northern Cyprus, which is part of an EU country that has been occupied and settled by Turkey."

Why Israel receives this excess of attention is unclear. Some commentators suggest that the nation's close links with the United States have made it a whipping boy for anti-capitalists. In a speech made earlier this month to the Anglo-Israel Association, British historian Andrew Roberts claimed "implicit racism" was behind much anti-Israel thinking. "Jews are expected to behave better," explained Roberts, "because they are like us [Britons]. Arabs must not be chastised because they are not."

What is obvious, says Balcombe, is that Britain's already diminished reputation in Israel will drop further unless it starts to treat the country like any other nation. If it doesn't, he says, the U.K. will damage "its role in the Middle East peace process." And that, he suggests, would be a loss for Israelis and Palestinians alike.