Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman reacted coldly Tuesday to the news that a British court issued an arrest warrant against former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni for alleged war crimes, saying that it "bodes ill."
"We are not looking for confrontations and friction, but we expect a more balanced and objective position from the British, and a less one-sided one,” Lieberman said. “We think that matters between Israel and Britain should be conducted in different tones... We cannot carry on as if everything were normal after [incidents such as] arrest warrants issued to senior Israelis; Britain's position in the vote on the Goldstone report; the decision to mark products from Judea and Samaria; and the British position regarding the Swedish draft resolution at the European Union convention.”
"We will try to hammer things out with British Foreign Minister David Miliband when he visits Israel in about a month,” Lieberman said.
Regarding the arrest warrant against Livni, Lieberman said the Foreign Ministry would be instructing its representatives in Europe to lobby for changing the laws currently governing the war against terrorism. “Terrorism is the true threat to world peace in the 21st century," Lieberman explained, "and fighting it is not the same as fighting conventional armies. Democratic countries need to adjust to the new situation, facing terror that takes advantage of the democratic counties' benefits in order to destroy democracy worldwide.”