The Israeli government cannot dictate our legal system. Miliband has shown he is capable of giving in to them. What's next? Pressure from Robert Mugabe.

This is allowing politics to erode fundemental legal rights, conventions which are centuries old.

This is not the separation of powers we hold dear in Britain, and will have grave consequences on our democracy. It will do great damage to our reputation at home and abroad.

There would appear to be a prima facie case against former and/or present Israeli ministers, of authorising the commission of war crimes against Palestinian civilians in Gaza, a year ago, in which hundreds of children were killed by the IDF.

However, the Attorney General is now reported as discussing an amendment to British law that would give her the ability to block the arrest of Israelis politicians, travelling to the United Kingdom, who are alleged to have committed war crimes, but would not block action against Nazi war criminals, Afghan war lords or fugitives alleged responsible for genocide. This apparently in an attempt to placate Israeli politicians who fear war crimes prosecutions if they visit Britain.

The government opinion being that whilst genuine war criminals should be brought to justice, the British justice system should be prevented from being manipulated for political ends.

However, it is a matter of public record that the UN Fact-Finding Mission led by Justice Richard Goldstone released its report on the Gaza conflict, in September last, in which it concluded that 'there is evidence indicating serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law were committed by Israel during the Gaza conflict, and that Israel committed actions amounting to war crimes, and possibly crimes against humanity'.

"The mission concluded that actions amounting to war crimes and possibly, in some respects, crimes against humanity, were committed by the Israel Defense Force (IDF)."

"The mission finds that the conduct of the Israeli armed forces constitute grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention in respect of wilful killings and wilfully causing great suffering to protected persons and as such give rise to individual criminal responsibility," the report's executive summary said. "It also finds that the direct targeting and arbitrary killing of Palestinian civilians is a violation of the right to life."

It went on to criticize the "deliberate and systematic policy on the part of the Israeli armed forces to target industrial sites and water installations," and the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields.

On the objectives and strategy of Israel's military operation, the mission concluded that military planners deliberately followed a doctrine which involved "the application of disproportionate force and the causing of great damage and destruction to civilian property and infrastructure, and suffering to civilian populations."

The criminal acts to which the report refers are assumed to have been authorised by the ministers of the then Israeli government but it would appear that the British government is considering amending UK law to allow such persons immunity from prosecution on British soil. That cannot be justified.