Middle East Monitor, MEMO, London

British Government confusion over Livni
The British government's policies on dealing with human rights abuses and having relations with the state of Israel appear to be in continued public disarray in the wake of the Tzipi Livni arrest warrant fiasco. Not content with the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary taking on penitents' mantles and apologising to Ms. Livni for a British court having the gall to try to apply the law of the land, the government is sending its senior law officer to Israel next month. According to the Jewish Chronicle (Livni warrant will be last, insists Miliband, 18 December), "Attorney General Baroness Scotland is due to visit Israel in the first week of January where she is expected to make an announcement on the new British position". This "new...position" refers to the Foreign Secretary's apparent urge to change the law to protect Israelis accused of war crimes. The JC front page article by Martin Bright says that the paper "understands that David Miliband has been keen to push through a change in legislation for some time, but met resistance in Cabinet".

MEMO contacted the Attorney General's office for some clarification about the forthcoming trip to Israel and it was confirmed by the Press Officer that Baroness Scotland is indeed planning to go. However, although the Press Officer was "not prepared to discuss further details", she did say, "No announcements will be made on universal jurisdiction". Perhaps Mr. Miliband hasn't got round to sharing his intentions with the Attorney General yet, preferring to brief his friends at the JC first; or maybe he's bluffing to buy himself some time. Either way, someone is not being totally honest.





The Palestinian Authority demands international investigation into the theft of the Palestinian organs
The Palestinian Authority Minister of Health said that harvesting organs - such as corneas, bones and skin - from Palestinian martyrs, without the consent of their families, is a moral crime that contradicts to all international laws.

Minister Fathi Abu Mughli said, commenting on what was confirmed on Israeli television, that official Israeli bodies steal organs of Palestinian martyrs and implant them in the bodies of injured Israeli soldiers.

Abu Mughli said that the Israeli Ministry of Health's response to the Yehuda Hiss interview is unacceptable. In a 57-minute interview conducted with Yehuda Hiss, the head of Israel's forensic institute, Hiss spoke about how workers at the institute had harvested Israeli organs.

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Also in The Guardian:
Doctor admits Israeli pathologists harvested organs without consent
Israel has admitted pathologists harvested organs from dead Palestinians, and others, without the consent of their families - a practice it said ended in the 1990s - it emerged at the weekend.

The admission, by the former head of the country's forensic institute, followed a furious row prompted by a Swedish newspaper reporting that Israel was killing Palestinians in order to use their organs - a charge that Israel denied and called "antisemitic".

The revelation, in a television documentary, is likely to generate anger in the Arab and Muslim world and reinforce sinister stereotypes of Israel and its attitude to Palestinians. Iran's state-run Press TV tonight reported the story, illustrated with photographs of dead or badly injured Palestinians.

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Egypts wall of shame

Comment by Fahmi Huwaidi
The news hit me like a sledgehammer. I still do not want to believe that Egypt has decided to build an underground wall of steel along its border with the Gaza Strip, cutting off the tunnels described by a British journalist recently as a "lifeline" between Egypt and the Palestinians.

But it's true. The report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which I thought - and wished - was a hoax to discredit Egypt has been confirmed by the Arab media. As-Shuruq's 13th December edition contained an article headed, "Rafah's Massive Underground Wall" and revealed shocking and devastating information on this development.

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