LONDON: Israel has violated innumerable UN resolutions and international laws over the past 50 years without any sanction being incurred — whether legal, economic, political or military. Most blatant is its disregard for the overwhelming opinion of the international court of justice in The Hague, which in 2004 declared the erection of a wall through the occupied territories to be unlawful. If you add the illegal occupation of Palestinian territory, continued extension of illegal settlements, forced evictions and house demolitions, requisition of water resources, Gaza blockade and illicit use of cloned passports to facilitate an assassination outside Israel, anyone might be think that this is a state that regards itself as above the law.

The creation of international crimes with universal jurisdiction was accomplished after years of negotiation and careful deliberation for one purpose: to ensure there could be no hiding place or safe haven for the perpetrators of the most heinous crimes against humanity. Examples of such cases are genocide, war crimes and torture.

The ICJ itself made clear in the wall case that the obligation to prosecute is the concern of all states. The problem is that no state has been willing to take on this task vis-a-vis Israel other than on a very muted diplomatic level. Lawyers acting for individuals in Palestine have been forced to do so themselves.

In 2009 Westminster magistrates court in central London issued an arrest warrant for Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister at the time of Operation Cast Lead, which caused an estimated death toll of 1,400 in Gaza. Britain's Labour government hierarchy fell over itself rushing to the Israeli authorities, not about the deaths but to apologise for the warrant.

A dramatic incident occurred as Livni was about to appear on Israeli television during the invasion. The interviewer Shlomi Eldar recognised a name that appeared on his mobile — Izzeldin Abuelaish, a Palestinian doctor who had given services equally to Israelis and Palestinians. — Dawn/Guardian News Service