“I will do this not for me, not for provocation, but for the right of every Israeli to travel freely,” Livni told the UK 's Jewish Chronicle, saying she would travel to the UK within weeks. “I am not going to be restricted by extremists because I fought terror.”

Last year a British court issued an arrest warrant for Livni, who served as Israel 's foreign minister during the Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip that ended in January 2009. Livni then canceled a scheduled trip to London in December, allegedly in response to the arrest warrant.

The arrest warrant was based on the principle of universal jurisdiction, in which national courts can issue arrest warrants for those suspected of perpetrating war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide in other countries. The UK, the Netherlands, Norway, Canada and New Zealand are among many countries whose laws provide for universal jurisdiction cases, and the principle has been used a number of times in the UK over the past year to secure arrest warrants for Israeli political and military leaders involved in the Gaza war.

“Belgium and Spain have changed their laws, and the British know that they have to do so,” said Livni, adding that British law was “being abused by extremists for political reasons."

Embarrassed by Livni being unable to travel to London in December, the British government promised to take "urgent" action to amend British law so as to protect visiting Israeli officials. British political leaders introduced an amendment to the Crime and Security Bill in the British Parliament and Baroness Patricia Scotland, the UK’s attorney general, traveled to Israel to reassure Israeli leaders. But the Cabinet is divided on the issue, while some are calling for immediate action by the end of the month, others are calling for a full inquiry into the ramifications of changing the law and more than 100 British parliamentarians have signed a motion opposing any change to British universal jurisdiction law.

"You have this procedure in which private citizens can go to a court and try show evidence of war crimes in another country, so an arrest warrant can be issued without the agreement of a state prosecutor," Eyal Gross, an Israeli professor of international law at Tel Aviv University currently researching in London, told The Media Line. "So as far as I understand it they want to change provisions in the law which make it easy for a private citizen to use universal jurisdiction."

"I don't know the extent that the average British person is familiar with the nuances of the law, but the debate is essentially over whether they should give a veto to the state prosecutor," Gross said. "This would give much more power to the state, rather than individuals, to make such decisions, so it's a heated situation."

Israel has been struggling for months to come to grips with the potential legal consequences of a UN report by South African judge Richard Goldstone calling for the Zionist state to potentially be dragged before the International Criminal Court and for the country's military leaders to face international prosecution for alleged war crimes.

The 575-page report on Goldstone's investigation into the Gaza war, released by the UN Human Rights Council last month, called on Israel to launch "genuine, impartial and independent" investigations into possible war crimes. Should Israel fail to do so, Goldstone recommended that Israel face the International Criminal Court and that individual countries use universal jurisdiction to prosecute perpetrators of war crimes.

In October Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman was reported as estimating that there were 964 international lawsuits outstanding against Israeli citizens around the world.

"It's a pity that they have not managed to change the law," Ruth Lapidot, former legal adviser to Israel's Foreign Ministry and professor emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Faculty of Law told The Media Line. "They are embarrassed and they should make a great effort to change the law."

"In most countries, universal jurisdiction depends on a decision by the state prosecutor, but in England the state prosecutor is not really involved, so it's a serious problem," Lapidot said. "If England doesn't change its law, Israel will probably bring lots of cases against Hamas figures and the like, because we will have no other way to protect our people. So if the British want to avoid the complete politicization of their legal system they must give the state prosecutor the discretion to decide on these cases."

Daniel Machover, an Israeli lawyer based in the UK and the co-founder of Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights, argued the debate surrounding universal jurisdiction in the UK had gone off course.

"For me the system works absolutely fine and it all gets sucked into politics," he told The Media Line. "There is no legal necessity to change anything in the UK. There's only a political pressure to do that, presumably from Israel and other countries who fear the application of universal jurisdiction."

"Israelis get sucked into a response of 'how can it be that an Israeli would be charged for war crimes, we are the most moral in the world' argument, etc., etc.," Machover said. "But as far as what I have seen these are very serious allegations against Israeli leaders, so for me the fact that an Israeli leader is subject to it is not evidence that it's being abused."

"If there were no case for Tzipi Livni to answer to then we could say that the legal system was being abused," he added. "But nobody, including Tzipi Livni, is addressing the question of whether or not there is a war crimes case for her to answer to."