Extensive evidence indicating Ms Livni’s individual criminal responsibility was presented to the DPP, and an effective dialogue was established with senior crown prosecutors that enabled relevant, admissible additional evidence to be supplied at their request. However, following the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s last-minute (apparently) retroactive attribution of diplomatic immunity to Ms Livni, on the basis of her visit constituting a “special mission”, the DPP issued a statement that he had been blocked from making any decision as to her arrest.
Livni
Livni to Ahmed Qurei and Saeb Erekat: “Israel was established to become a national home for Jews from all over the world. The Jew gets the citizenship as soon as he steps in Israel, and therefore don’t say anything about the nature of Israel… The basis for the creation of the state of Israel is that it was created for the Jewish people. Your state will be the answer to all Palestinians including refugees. Putting an end to claims means fulfilling national rights for all.”
Al-Jazeera TV , the Guardian: PA agreed to concede almost all of East Jerusalem to Israel, accept Israeli demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and much more.
At a meeting in November 2007, [Livni] told Qureia that she believed Palestinians saw settlement building as meaning “Israel takes more land [so] that the Palestinian state will be impossible”; that “the Israel policy is to take more and more land day after day and that at the end of the day we’ll say that is impossible, we already have the land and we cannot create the state”. She conceded that it had been “the policy of the government for a really long time”.
IOA Editor: US-backed Israeli rejectionism, delivered by Tzipi Livni — generally regarded as Israel’s “more flexible” opposition leader. [Ha!] Nothing that we didn’t already know, other than the details on the specific Palestinian concessions. Even more interesting is Qureia’s March 2008 comment to Condoleezza Rice “You bring back life to the region when you come.” After Israel’s mass killing campaign in Lebanon and the US slaughter Iraq, it would have been far more accurate to state “you bring death to the region.”
Al-Jazeera TV , the Guardian: PA agreed to concede almost all of East Jerusalem to Israel, accept Israeli demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and much more.
Chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat: “This is the first time in Palestinian-Israeli history in which such a [concession] is officially made.” … But the offer was rejected out of hand by Israel because it did not include … Ma’ale Adumim as well as Har Homa and several other [settlements] deeper in the West Bank, including Ariel. “We do not like this suggestion because it does not meet our demands,” Israel’s then foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, told the Palestinians.
IOA Editor: US-backed Israeli rejectionism, delivered by Tzipi Livni — generally regarded as Israel’s “more flexible” opposition leader. [Ha!] Nothing that we didn’t already know, other than the details on the specific Palestinian concessions.
The demand to suspend settlement building is no excuse [to torpedo direct talks] – it’s as legitimate a position as the Palestinians can have. Why should they relinquish a condition that has the support of the entire world, with the sole exception of Israel?
IOA Editor: Eldar is correct in pointing to the reasonableness of the Palestinian position on the settlement freeze. And his focus on Israeli Foreign Minister Lieberman is understandable, even if not entirely logical – Netanyahu, at whose pleasure Lieberman serves, is not terribly different. Most importantly, based on past performance, Eldar’s pointing to Livni as a replacement for Lieberman misses the mark entirely: During Israel’s attack on Gaza, Livni was a leading participant in Israel’s crimes, indistinguishable from the rest. It is doubtful that Livni would move Netanyahu towards a viable peace agreement, as Eldar wishes, because there’s nothing to support the suggestion that either Netanyahu or Livni would be willing “to evacuate most [settlements] permanently.”
It happened in London last December: Police officers raided a hotel in the British capital to arrest Opposition Chairwoman Tzipi Livni for alleged war crimes during Operation Cast Lead. Luckily for her, she was not even in the city. The details of the dramatic affair… could have sparked a wide-scale diplomatic incident and possibly put Israel and Britain’s relations in danger.
Akiva Eldar: Netanyahu is not trying to enlarge his government because a new war is threatening Israel’s citizens. Rather, he is scared the peace process will threaten the wholeness of his government.
The Women’s Coalition for Peace sent a letter on Wednesday to Israel’s former Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, calling on her to cooperate with international investigations into her role in the assault on Gaza last winter, after a British court issued an warrant for her arrest on Monday.
The Foreign Ministry on Tuesday summoned the British envoy to Israel to rebuke him over the arrest warrant issued for Kadima chairwoman Tzipi Livni for alleged war crimes in Gaza. … [Naor Gilon, deputy director at the Foreign Ministry in charge of Western Europe] called on Phillips to urge his government to change the law that allows for arrest warrants to be issued against senior Israeli officials over alleged war crimes perpetrated in Gaza during the winter conflict between Israel and Hamas.
