Livni cancels JNF visit to UK

Following from the last couple of posts, here is more evidence that normal international life for senior Israelis has become problematical. Small beer in the context of the miseries Israel inflicts on the Palestinians and its own non-Jewish citizens maybe, but progress of sorts.

This from 'Jewish Community Online' today:

Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni cancelled a visit to Britain this weekend over fears pro-Palestinian lawyers would seek to have her arrested.
Ms Livni had been due to speak at Sunday’s JNF Vision 2010 conference in Hendon, north-west London. She had also been expected to meet Prime Minister Gordon Brown for private talks.
But she pulled out of the trip for fear of lawyers obtaining an arrest warrant.
She is the latest senior Israeli politician to avoid Britain. In October, Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon was advised by a special inter-departmental team working with ministers to pull out of a JNF dinner in London.
Experts on international law from the foreign and justice ministries, and the IDF Attorney-General’s department, have advised cabinet ministers with a security background and senior IDF officers not to visit Britain, Spain, Belgium or Norway, while lawyers in these countries are seeking to arrest Israelis on charges of alleged war crimes through “universal jurisdiction” laws.
Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor, speaking at the JNF conference, said Israel was fighting the laws “tooth and nail” and would “not be shut down”.
A group of around 100 anti-Israel protestors demonstrated outside the Hendon Hall Hotel venue as delegates arrived.

 And this from today's Guardian:

Moshe Ya'alon, the Israeli deputy prime minister and strategic affairs minister, turned down an invitation to appear at a London fundraising event last month after he was warned he might face arrest on suspicion of war crimes.
His decision, reported in October, came a week after lawyers for 16 Palestinians failed to persuade a British court to issue an arrest warrant for Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence and deputy prime minister, over Israel's war in Gaza this January. Barak, whose visit included addressing a fringe meeting at the Labour party conference in Brighton, was regarded as having diplomatic immunity.
Ya'alon had been invited by the Jewish National Fund. He had cancelled at least one previous planned trip to the UK. He was advised not to travel over an incident dating back to July 2002 when he was chief of staff of the Israeli military. An Israeli jet bombed a house in Gaza, killing Salah Shehadeh, then leader of Hamas's military wing, and 14 civilians, including Shehadeh's wife and several children.
In June a Spanish court shelved an investigation into that attack. The suspects also included the former defence minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer. He has attacked the "legal circus" in Spain and the UK.
In December 2007 Avi Dichter, then public security minister and head of the Shin Bet internal security agency at the time of the Shehadeh incident, cancelled a trip to Britain the following month for a security conference at King's College London.
In September 2005 detectives were waiting at Heathrow airport to arrest the retired Israeli general Doron Almog on war crimes allegations relating to house demolitions and assassinations in Gaza, also in 2002. But he remained on the El Al plane for two hours before flying off. The Guardian revealed last year that Scotland Yard allowed him to escape partly because officers feared an attempt to stop him would lead to a gun battle.