Tzipi Livni: I'm coming to Britain

Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni

THE JC.COM
By Stephen Pollard and Martin Bright, February 3, 2010

Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni is planning to come to London to test the process for the issuing of arrest warrants for alleged war crimes.

Speaking exclusively to the JC, Ms Livni said: “I will do this not for me, not for provocation, but for the right of every Israeli to travel freely. I am not going to be restricted by extremists because I fought terror.”

The British system was, she said, “being abused by extremists for political reasons. Belgium and Spain have changed their laws, and the British know that they have to do so”.

Asked when she planned to come to London, she said she was considering a number of invitations. The JC understands from a source close to Ms Livni that, should the parliamentary deadline of February 23 pass without an announcement of a change in the law, she would take up one of the invitations within weeks.

If the law did not change, she said she would consult the Israeli Foreign Ministry on the exact legal situation, but would seek to act on behalf of all Israelis by visiting London.

“My intention is not to stay in Israel for ever. I don’t think as a decision-maker, who made decisions against terror, that I should plan never to leave Israel. The British fight terror, too. They do not remain in Britain. They travel.”

Ms Livni had originally been scheduled to come to London for a JNF conference at the end of last year. However, there is still no agreement at ministerial level on a change to the universal jurisdiction legislation. This now opens up the serious possibility that nothing will happen before the election.

The Jewish Leadership Council wrote to Mr Straw on January 28 requesting an urgent meeting on the issue, but has yet to receive a response.

The Foreign Office has confirmed that there have been further delays and said that no announcement is likely this week or next.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband first pledged a change to the law in December when the arrest warrant for Ms Livni was issued.The Ministry of Justice continued to maintain that Justice Secretary Jack Straw was not blocking the legislation.

However, the JC has spoken to several government sources who have said Mr Straw was “playing dirty” to delay an announcement.

The Ministry of Justice this week confirmed that any amendment to the law is likely to be attached to the Crime and Security Bill, which finishes its committee stage on February 23. The Government could then introduce an amendment at the report stage. An MoJ aide said that an amendment lies outside the scope of Mr Straw’s Constitutional Reform Bill, which ends its committee stage next week.

Meanwhile, backbench opposition to the Bill has been building. An early day motion opposing a change to the law now has 108 signatories, which would represent a significant rebellion so close to an election.

At a meeting earlier this week of the all-party parliamentary group on UK compliance with international law, lawyer Daniel Machover, who has been prominent in the campaign behind the arrest warrants of Israelis, presented the case for opposing the law change. MPs present committed themselves to a campaign to delay any announcement, a strategy which worked in 2005, when the issue was previously raised.

Veteran Labour rebel Bob Marshall-Andrews, who attended the meeting, chaired by Baroness Tonge, said: “I simply do not know what the government is going to do. If there is any moral, it is not to say the first thing that comes into your head.”

Shadow Attorney General Edward Garnier was also present at the meeting. The Conservative Party has pledged to support the government in its attempts to amend the legislation. However, it has serious reservations about parts of the Crime and Security Bill. The Tories are opposed to proposals in the bill on the collection of DNA evidence, ASBOs, stop and search and gangs.

Mr Garnier said: “It is no good blackmailing us to pass a bad piece of legislation. It is disingenuous to use our reasoned opposition to the Crime and Security Bill as an excuse. They know that if they come up with a sensible suggestion on universal jurisdiction, we will support them. But we need to know what they plan to do first.”

Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Danny Ayalon, will visit London next week. He is exempt from war crimes warrants because of his ministerial status.

Human Rights Watch: The World Needs More Corrupt and Politicized “International Justice”.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

MIDDLE EAST AND TERRORISM

by Noah Pollak

Predictable, of course. Clive Baldwin, a “senior legal adviser” to HRW, finds it “most embarrassing of all” that the British attorney general “gave a speech in Jerusalem on 5 January declaring that the government was ‘determined that Israel’s leaders should always be able to travel freely to the UK.’”

Can’t have that, can we?

This really isn’t about international justice, of course. It’s about the desire of many human-rights activists — today they unfortunately are almost exclusively drawn from the far Left — for more political power. Here’s how the international justice game is played:

Groups like HRW rely on fraudulent or biased testimony in Gaza and Lebanon (or Iraq) combined with creative interpretations of the “laws of war” to produce claims of war crimes; these claims are received as legitimate and trustworthy in UN bodies, among allied NGOs, and in the international press; activist lawyers use the now-laundered allegations to file universal jurisdiction lawsuits with sympathetic British judges; arrest warrants are issued. But then government officials recognize the awful reality of this politicized little merry-go-round and speak out against the practice — prompting HRW to protest that politicians are interfering in the independence of the court system. Chutzpah.

There are at least a few people left in the UK who understand the perniciousness of “universal jurisdiction.” One is MP Daniel Hannan, who wrote a terse seven-point refutation of the idea yesterday (h/t Andrew Stuttaford):

1. Territorial jurisdiction has been a remarkably successful concept. Ever since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, it has been broadly understood that crimes are the responsibility of the state where they are committed. … Western liberals might say: “Since Karadzic won’t get justice in Serbia, he should get it at The Hague.” But an Iranian judge might apply precisely the same logic and say: “Adulterers in Western countries are going unpunished: we must kidnap them and bring them to a place where they will face consequences”. …

2. International jurisdiction breaks the link between legislators and law. Instead of legislation being passed by representatives who are, in some way, accountable to their populations, laws are generated by international jurists. …

7. The politicisation of international jurisprudence seems always to come from the same direction: a writ was served against Ariel Sharon, but not against Yasser Arafat. Augusto Pinochet was arrested, but Fidel Castro could attend international summits. Donald Rumsfeld was indicted in Europe, but not Saddam Hussein.
What you’ll always find about the international-justice hustle is that its proponents never explain how these fatal problems can be resolved. In this case, the problems, of course, are the solutions. That’s because universal jurisdiction isn’t about justice. It’s about power.


Noah Pollak
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Is Judaism racist? If so, what’s wrong with that?

Israpundit. com

February 4, 2010

The House of Lords by a 5 to 4 decision have decided that Judaism is racist. They didn’t actually say it but that is what their decision amounts to. Jews can no longer base admission requirements to a Jewish school on whether your mother was Jewish. In essence the State is not allowing Jews to determine for themselves who is Jewish. This decision could have much wider implications. For instance, if an Orthodox Rabbi refused to marry a couple because the bride or groom wasn’t halachically Jewish, could the courts force him to?

Even if your mother was not Jewish you could become a Jew after you reach 13, by undergoing an orthodox conversion. Thus Judaism is not racist.

When the law says that religious law must not violate Human Rights Law, we accept that because honour killings or wife beatings for example, should not be allowed. In general, the state has taken upon itself the right to decide what is moral. This decision goes beyond what is moral in the name of morality. How does one draw the line between these too things? It is good that the law proscribes discrimination in a public place. But is a Jewish school a public space. Christians ask the same question when the law won’t let them refuse to hire a gay teacher for their schools.

First “Zionism is racism” and now “Judaism is racism”.

Who Is a British Jew?
David Pryce-Jones, COMMENTARY MAG

[..] Following the ruling of the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, Jonathan Sacks, the Jewish Free School decided that E did not qualify for admission because Mrs. M’s conversion did not pass the test of Orthodoxy, and therefore their son was not deemed Jewish by the standards of the Jewish community of Great Britain. For the past 2,000 years or so, Jews have considered themselves Jewish by virtue of a Jewish mother—that is, by matrilineal descent.Mr. M decided to sue the school on grounds of discrimination under the Race Relations Act. Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle, a London weekly that is almost an official voice for Britain’s Jewish community, expressed the sudden anxiety that things might well get out of hand: “This is potentially the biggest case in the British Jewish community’s modern history. It speaks directly to the right of the state to intervene in how a religion operates.”[..]

Iraq Inquiry: Tony Blair had no regrets over toppling Saddam Hussein

Tony Blair refused to express regret for overthrowing Saddam Hussein and told the Chilcot Inquiry he would take the decision to invade Iraq again even knowing the dictator had no weapons of mass destruction.
By Rosa Prince and James Kirkup
Published: 10:00PM GMT 29 Jan 2010

During six tense hours in front of the inquiry into the war, the former prime minister also used his testimony repeatedly to urge world leaders to take military action against Iran, which he described as more dangerous than Iraq had been under Saddam.

His confident delivery was interrupted only once by the audience, which included the relatives of British troops killed in Iraq, when he was asked to reflect on the fate of those who had died during the conflict. Key points - Tony Blair:

* Said that the September 11th attacks changed everything

* Revealed that he promised George Bush a year earlier that he would join an invasion to topple Saddam

* Backtracked on his admission during Fern Britton interview, in which he said he would have gone to war without WMD

* Stood by his belief that Iraq’s possession of WMD was “beyond doubt”

* Stood by the Iraq dossier, but said that the 45-minute claim should have been corrected

But he did not stumble as he was asked whether he had any regrets over the war, saying: “Responsibility, but not a regret for removing Saddam Hussein. I believe he was a monster, that he threatened not just the region but the world.

“And in the circumstances that we faced then, but I think even if you look back now, it was better to deal with this threat, to remove him from office.”

In defiant and assured testimony, the former prime minister was clear that the Iraqi dictator had to be “got rid of” the moment the 9/11 attacks on the United States took place.

He made explicit that Britain was prepared from the outset to go to war without the support of the United Nations, but denied entering into a secret pact with President George W Bush to take military action a year before the 2003 invasion.

“This isn’t about a lie or a conspiracy or a deceit or a deception. It’s a decision,” he said.

“The decision I took – and frankly would take again – was if there was any possibility that he could develop weapons of mass destruction we should stop him. That was my view then and that is my view now. This is a profoundly wicked, I would say almost psychopathic, man.”

Mr Blair went on to deny deceiving Parliament and the public over the intelligence reports of WMD used to justify the war, saying: “I did believe it. And I did believe it frankly beyond doubt.”

Insisting that UN weapons inspections would have failed to find WMD, even if they had been given more time, he defended the decision to circumvent the Security Council and go to war without a specific mandate.

Muffled shouts from the protesters outside the building could be heard occasionally as Mr Blair spoke, and some relatives wept as he came to the end of his evidence.

HOW THE WORLD CHANGED AFTER 9/11

Mr Blair told the hearing he considered the September 11 2001 atrocities to be an attack on Britain as well as the United States, changing his assessment of the risk from Saddam, and making “regime change” in Iraq virtually inevitable.

He said the fundamentalist terrorist attacks showed him that rogue states, including Iraq, could not be allowed to continue to defy the rest of the world, or potentially develop weapons of mass destruction.

Pushed on claims by Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British ambassador to the US, that a deal to invade Iraq was “signed in blood” between President Bush and Mr Blair at one-to-one talks at the Texas ranch in Crawford, he admitted that he told the American leader that Britain “would be with him”.

But, he added: “I don’t think Christopher Meyer was ever at the critical meeting. The position was not a covert position, it was an open position. The primary consideration for me was to send an absolutely powerful, clear and unremitting message that, after September 11, if you were a regime engaged in WMD, you had to stop.”

THE INTELLIGENCE FAILINGS

Mr Blair denied that he had deceived the country or Parliament about the reasons for going to war, or over Iraq’s ability to launch WMD. He defended his assertion in the notorious dossier of September 2002, which made the case for war, that the intelligence services had established “beyond doubt” that Saddam had WMD. “I did believe it and I did believe it was beyond doubt,” he said. “It was hard to come to any other conclusion than that this person is continuing WMD programmes.”

In one of his few expressions of regret, Mr Blair conceded that the claim that incorrect reports which suggested that Saddam could launch attacks on British targets at 45 minutes’ notice should have been put right.

He said: “It would have been better to have corrected it in the light of the significance it later took on.”

THE FERN BRITTON INTERVIEW

There were murmurs from the audience as Mr Blair brushed off a question about an interview he gave last year with Fern Britton, a daytime television presenter, in which he suggested that had he known that Saddam did not have WMD, he would have sought other grounds for invading. He smiled and said: “Even with all my experience in dealing with interviews, it still indicates that I have got something to learn about it.

“Obviously, all I was saying was you cannot describe the nature of the threat in the same way if we knew then what we know now. It was in no sense a change of position.”

THE UNITED NATIONS ROUTE

The inquiry was told that Mr Blair had always wanted to act within the parameters of the UN but was aware from the start that this was unlikely to succeed.

He told how President Bush had agreed to his request to seek a Security Council resolution, which became 1441, and later battled to secure a second explicit mandate to go to war. “A second resolution was obviously going to make life a lot easier, politically and in every respect,” he said. In the month before the invasion, the negotiations to secure a second resolution failed because the French and Russians shifted position, he added.

An impassioned Mr Blair told the hearing: “Sometimes what is important is not to ask the March 2003 question, but to ask the 2010 question. Supposing we had backed off this military action, supposing we had left Saddam and his sons who were going to follow him in charge of Iraq – he had used chemical weapons, caused the death of over a million people.”

THE LEGAL CASE

Mr Blair insisted that it was reasonable to argue that attacking Iraq was justified in international law, and denied putting pressure on Lord Goldsmith, then the attorney general, to endorse his view.

He said that if Lord Goldsmith had not given his approval, Britain would not have taken part in the attack.

“Anyone who knows Peter Goldsmith knows he would not have expressed that view unless he thought and believed it,” he said.

IRAN

The former prime minister used his appearance to issue a clarion call to world leaders to take action against Iran. “My judgment – and it may be other people don’t take this view, and that’s for the leaders of today to make their judgment – is we don’t take any risks with this issue,” he said.

“My fear was – and I would say I hold this fear stronger today than I did back then as a result of what Iran particularly today is doing – my fear is that states that are highly repressive or failed, the danger of a WMD link is that they become porous, they construct all sorts of different alliances with people.

“When I look at the way that Iran today links up with terror groups ... I would say that a large part of the destabilisation in the Middle East at the present time comes from Iran.”

PLANNING

An “immense” amount of planning for dealing with post-war Iraq took place, but Britain failed to anticipate the disintegration of the state and the violence that followed, Mr Blair admitted.

“If we knew then what we know now, we would have done things differently. But for what we thought we were going to have, we had planned adequately,” he said.

Tony Blair's key quotes

* "This isn’t about a lie or a conspiracy or a deceit or a deception. It’s a decision. I had to take the decision. I believed, and in the end the Cabinet believed - so did Parliament incidentally - that we were right not to run that risk."

* "The decision I took - and frankly would take again - was if there was any possibility that he could develop weapons of mass destruction we should stop him. That was my view then and that is my view now."

* "This is a profoundly wicked, I would say almost psychopathic, man [Saddam Hussein]. We were obviously worried that after him his two sons seemed to be as bad, if not worse."

* "The point about those acts in New York is that, had they been able to kill more people than the 3,000, they would have. My view was you can't take risks with this issue."

* "Supposing we had backed off this military action, supposing we had left Saddam and his sons who were going to follow him in charge of Iraq - he had used chemical weapons, caused the death of over a million people.”

* On his claim in the dossier that Iraq possessed WMD: "What I said in the foreword was that I believed I was beyond doubt. I did believe it and I did believe that it was beyond doubt."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/7104868/Tony-Blair-at-the-Iraq-Inquiry---the-highlights.html
LINK TO VIDEO - TONY BLAIR