Those who believe that supra-national jurisdiction and the internationalisation of ‘human rights’ law betoken an elevated sphere of being and the imminent establishment of utopia will no doubt be cheering on the fact that soldiers trying to defend their citizens from genocidal attack can no longer set foot in Britain for fear of being arrested on charges of war crimes.

Israel’s Maj.-Gen. Doron Almog who flew to Britain to raise money for a charitable cause, was warned by Israel’s ambassador to London not to disembark from his El Al flight at Heathrow because British detectives were waiting to arrest him. The arrest warrant had been issued on Saturday by the Bow Street Magistrate's Court at the request of a pro-Palestinian group. The warrant alleged that in 2002 Almog had ordered the demolition of 59 Palestinian homes in Rafah. Gen. Almog decided not to alight from the plane, and remained aboard until it turned around and returned to Israel.

The Guardian reported Almog’s reaction:

‘He said that neither he nor his country had any case to answer for the deaths of innocent Palestinians in their battle against militants. "As a soldier and a general I have never committed a crime. Many times I have saved Palestinian lives by risking my life and the lives of my soldiers," he said. The actions of the army in Gaza were to prevent terrorist attacks against Israel, he said.'

The indictment had been filed by an Israeli lawyer living in Britain, Daniel Machover, who is working with a Palestinian pressure group. According to this article Machover is a fully paid-up member of the Israeli Israel-haters' club:

‘In May 2005, Machover signed a letter in support of an academic boycott against Israeli universities, as adopted by Britain’s Association of University Teachers. The letter called on European governments to pass sanctions on Israeli universities. In October 2000, Machover signed a letter which compared the Oslo peace process to “apartheid:”

‘“To the dismay of the Israeli government, the Palestinian people would not put up or shut up with apartheid masquerading as peace process. The barbaric Israeli response is the mowing down of unarmed civilians utilizing Apache (helicopter) gunships and tanks. Israel inflicts collective punishment, such as destruction of homes and the cutting of utilities. All because the Palestinians will not accept apartheid…. The truth is now out and the Oslo sham cannot be resurrected,” said the letter.

‘Machover’s client, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, is a politicized nongovernmental organization. The organization’s ‘philosophy’ page on its website condemns “Israel's violent campaign to crush the Al-Aqsa Intifada and maintain the Occupation since September 2000,” and omits any condemnation of Palestinian suicide terrorism against Israeli civilians. The page also contains a pro-Palestinian political platform which calls for a “right of return for Palestinian refugees.” The organization’s website provides a direct link to the anti-Israel ‘Electronic Intifada’ Palestinian website, which advocates a boycott against the State of Israel.’

Alog is not the only one facing such an action. Ha’aretz reports that Israel’s Chief of Staff Dan Halutz is in the same position:

‘Halutz - like Major General (res.) Doron Almog, who refrained two days ago from disembarking from an El Al plane in London and was forced to return to Israel, and like former chief of staff Moshe Ya'alon - is facing in Britain a complaint pertaining to his involvement in approving the targeted killing of Salah Shehadeh in July 2002. A one-ton bomb was dropped on a residential neighborhood in the Gaza Strip in that operation, killing 14 innocent Palestinians, most of them children. As is the case with Almog, if Halutz or Ya'alon decide to travel to London, courts there are likely to issue an arrest warrant against them. But, unlike Almog's predicament, the initiative to open a criminal investigation against Halutz and Ya'alon does not come only from Palestinian organizations, but also from the Israeli Yesh Gvul movement.’

Yesh Gvul supports Israeli soldiers who refuse to serve in the disputed territories. Its targeting of these IDF officers for defending their country has finally woken even some of the Israeli left from their torpor. Knesset member Yigal Yasinov of the Shinui Party has said:

‘"There is a limit to the chutzpah of traitors as well. I expect the members of Yesh Gvul to give up their Israeli citizenship, assume PA citizenship, and to live on the order side of the border." He said he plans to ask the Attorney General and Justice Minister to declare Yesh Gvul a terror-sponsoring organization, outlaw it, and open investigations against its members.'

While the Israeli 'human rights' worm might just finally be beginning to turn, Britain's legal establishment with its power-crazed, anti-democratic mania for supra-national jurisdiction and its elevation of international and human rights law to the status of unchallengeable holy writ has created a hospitable judicial environment for any group with a grievance to criminalise acts of military self-defence if civilians get caught in the cross-fire. A judicial structure, in other words, that can now be used to emasculate the defence of the free world by empowering its enemies to hound and persecute those who are trying to mount that defence.

To cap this madness, Machover has now also called for the arrest of the Israel ambassador – for warning Alog that he was about to be arrested by the forces of a state that appears to have taken leave of its senses.

No doubt if Almog had torched a synagogue or two, he’d have been hailed as a heroic fighter for freedom.