Israel ministers to boycott UK over arrest row

The Israeli government has ordered its ministers not to visit Britain until a new law is introduced allowing them to enter the country without fear of arrest.

The boycott will intensify the diplomatic row that has broken out following the issuing of a warrant by a London court for the arrest of Tzipi Livni, the former Israeli foreign minister, for alleged war crimes.

Britain’s ambassador to Israel, Tom Phillips, was given news of the boycott by the Israeli Foreign Office last Friday.

Naor Gilon, a Foreign Office official in Tel Aviv, told Phillips: “Until a solution is found, senior Israelis will boycott Britain and will not visit the UK.”

The rebuke will add to Gordon Brown’s embarrassment just as he is trying to mollify Israel over the warrant for Livni. She was being sought for questioning about her role in last winter’s offensive in Gaza, after which both sides were accused of war crimes. The operation left 1,400 Palestinians dead, most of them civilians.

With the Israelis bristling over what it sees as Britain’s high-handed attempt to judge its military operations, Brown and David Miliband, the foreign secretary, were forced to apologise to Livni. They promised the law would be changed.

Last weekend, a judge at the the City of Westminster magistrates’ court agreed to a request by an unidentified Palestinian to have Livni arrested for her alleged involvement in war crimes linked to the offensive. The warrant was withdrawn when it emerged she was not in the UK and was not due to visit. More

On 18 July 1290 every professing Jew in England was ordered out of the Realm, for ever, by King Edward I. Between sixteen and seventeen thousand Jews had to flee, and none dared return until four hundred years later "Although Edward I's 1290 edict of expulsion was not formally revoked as Manasseh [Ben Israel] had hoped, the resumption of open Jewish worship achieved the same practical result. The edict has actually not been revoked to this day." Joan Comay: Who's Who in Jewish History after the Period of the Old Testament (1974). The Edict of Expulsion of 1290