International News Desk

Israel and Britain’s current relationship is in jeopardy with the suspension by the  Israeli government of the  “Strategic dialogue” between the two nations.

According to Israeli sources, the talks about security threats and intelligence could not go any further because of the risk Israeli senior officials of being arrested in the UK for suspicion of war crimes.

Latest reports mention, that the Israeli government had come to this decision to cancel a visit to London, when it was known that the British government two weeks ago, after the Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor cancelled his trip to Britain because of fears for his arrest by British authorities over fears of war crimes charges.

After this incident Mr Hague is known to have been embarrassed and disappointed, due to the fact Israel had been expecting a more rapid response from the current British government to act on the promise the previous government made for a swift change to the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows private citizens to secure arrest warrants for offences committed abroad.

This assurance  introduced by the Labour government last year when Israel’s Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni had to cancel a visit to London for a speech for the exact same reason of arrest by British authorities.

Legislation about this issue are expected to be introduced by before Christmas according the Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke. These measures will raise the threshold of evidence required to secure such arrests and give the final say to the Director of Public Prosecution rather going to a magistrate.

This legislation should satisfy Israeli concerns according to British officials, however Mr Hague said that the Palestinian groups will not agree and implement the new law. Mr Hague added: “We are resolving this problem through parliament, and we will do so in our way and on our own schedule”.