Tzipi Livni Arrest Warrant.

As previously mentioned last week a low level, local British court issued and arrest warrant for Tzipi Livni, the former Israeli Foreign Minister and current leader of Israel's main opposition party. Rather then being a serious attempt to arrest Ms Livni this was merely a panicked attempt by a low level judge to discourage Ms Livni from attending a meeting of a small Jewish society in case it provoked a riot. Although the whole thing was pretty insignificant and probably best described as a farce I knew as soon as I heard about it that it had the potential to become a full blown international incident and it did not disappoint.

As soon as the high level Brits at the Foreign Office/MI6 worked out what their subordinates had done they responded by arresting a British, right wing activist known as Wigan Mike. Made famous by the Wigan V Tottenham soccer match Wigan Mike is considered to be a key player in English Defence League (EDL) and the arrest was made for using racist and abusive language at an EDL demonstration a few months ago. This type of offence is normally dealt with under the Public Order Act but this case was dealt with under the Anti-Terrorism Act to make the whole thing sound far more dramatic then it really was. Apart from promoting discussion within the British Establishment over the need for such comprehensive anti-terror laws the purpose of this move was two fold. Firstly it was to reassure the Israelis that Britain was still a friend of Israel by showing that it is prepared to get tough with Fascists. Secondly and most importantly it was an attempt to open a dialogue with the Israelis to find out what they were thinking when they sent Ms Livni to a meeting that could have provoked a riot in North London.

The Israelis decided to hide behind the Hanukkah holidays and ignore the question. This forced the Brits to speculate wildly by using a story about some junior players at Tottenham soccer club throwing a wild Christmas party against their managers orders. As Tottenham is soccer code for Jews this was another attempt to open a dialogue with the Israelis by suggesting that the Livni incident had been the result of some junior Mossad officers playing a practical joke rather then something more sinister. It still got no response from the Israelis though so on Friday someone stole the infamous "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign from above the gates of the Auschwitz death camp. This is where things start to get complicated because although it is in Poland the Auschwitz memorial/museum is something of an international zone administered by Israelis, non-Israeli Jews along with non-Jewish Poles, Brits, Canadians and Americans. On the face of it it looked as if the Germans had panicked and stolen the sign in order to force their way into the discussion between the Brits and the Israelis. In fact I think that the British element at Auschwitz, with the knowledge if not the consent of the Israeli element, made it look as is if someone had stolen then sign by cutting a hole in the fence. The purpose of this was to force a reaction out of the Israeli's, convince them that Britain was removing that sort of rhetoric from its politics while at the same time smearing the Germans and putting everyone under ever more pressure on the final day of the COP15 summit.