“Don’t eat Belgian chocolate,” the Israel consul in Florida ordered the large Jewishcommunity there.
In Israel, anti-Belgian curses reached an ear-splitting new crescendo. Miserable Belgium!Mad Belgium! Megalomaniac Belgium! And again and again, Anti-Semitic Belgium! Neo-NaziBelgium!
The Israeli ambassador was, of course, recalled from Brussels. No wonder, how can Israel keepan ambassador in the world capital of anti-Semitism?
The storm broke when a Belgian court decided that Ariel Sharon can be sued for alleged warcrimes, but only after finishing his term as Prime Minister of Israel. Israel army officersconnected with the 1982 massacre in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps can be sued even now.
On an Israeli TV program, the anchorman, a lawyer, put it this way: “Anti-Semitic Belgiumwants to judge the officers of a second country for crimes committed in a third country, whilethe accused have no connection at all with Belgium, are not on Belgium territory and the wholeaffair does not concern Belgium. That is megalomania, really a matter for psychiatrists!”
“Strange,” I replied on the program, “I seem to remember a case where country A kidnapped incountry B the citizen of country C for committing in country D crimes against the citizens ofcountries E, F and G, all this in spite of the fact the crimes were committed before country Aeven existed.”
I meant, of course, the trial of Adolf Eichmann, to which we all agreed.
“How can you compare the two!” the other participants on the program cried out in outragedunison. And indeed, how can one compare the actions of Jews with actions of goyim committedagainst Jews?
Well, it were the Jews who demanded, after World War II, that all countries put Nazi warcriminals and their allies on trial. Eichmann was judged in Israel according to the Israeli”Law for bringing the Nazis and their Helpers to Justice”, which does not recognize anyborders. More recently the Knesset enacted another law, enabling Israeli courts to judgeperpetrators of any crime committed against Jews anywhere in the world. If so, what’s wrongwith the Belgian law of “universal jurisdiction”, that allows Belgian courts to judge wascriminals from all over the world?
Immanuel Kant promulgated the Categorical Imperative: “Act as if the principle by which youact were about to be turned into a universal law of nature”. But then, Kant was probably ananti-Semite.
Hundreds of years ago, the world adopted a legal doctrine that allowed every country to judgeand hang pirates, irrespective of their ethnic identity, origin and area of activity. Theassumption was that the pirate is an enemy of humanity at large, and that therefore everycountry has the right – indeed, the duty – to judge him.
The Belgian law against war crimes is a step in this direction, and I hope that many othercountries will follow suit. Of course, it would be better if the International Criminal Courtin The Hague would fulfil this duty, but much time will pass before it will be able to. Immensepolitical pressures are being exerted, many limitations have been imposed, its hands andfeet have been shackled. Worse, the only super-power, the United States, is openly trying todestroy it (as it destroyed the League of Nations after World War I.)
My dream is that before the end of the 21 st century a new, binding world order, headed by a worldparliament, will come into being. This order must include a world court and a world policeforce, that will judge conflicts between nations the way today’s national courts judgeconflicts between people. The road there is long and full of obstacles, decades will passbefore humanity will reach this stage. But we must strive towards this end. In the meantime,other countries must follow the Belgian example, in order to progress along this way.Especially concerning war crimes.
Some will say that we should not extradite our fellow-citizens, that it is the duty of everystate to judge its war-criminals itself. But this is utopian: no country in the world hasreally done so. That is quite natural: not only are states disinclined to admit to suchshameful crimes and try to hide them, but generally such crimes are committed by agents of thestate itself.
The affair of Sabra and Shatila is a good example. Here, briefly, are the facts:
In the summer of 1982, the Israeli army invaded West Beirut, violating an explicit commitmentgiven to the American mediator, Phillip Habib, not to do so. By that time, the PLO forces hadalready left the city.
From that moment on, West Beirut, including the Palestinian refugee camps Sabra and Shatila,became an Israeli occupied territory, making the Israeli army responsible for everythinghappening there.
After the occupation, the IDF let the “Phalangists”, members of an extreme MaroniteChristian group, enter the two camps. These people has already committed heinous massacresin other Palestinian refugee camps. They were headed by a notorious mass-murderer, EliHweika.
All senior Israeli officials involved with Lebanon knew that the Phalangists werecommitting atrocities in order to panic the Palestinians into fleeing from Lebanon.
When the Israeli cabinet was informed of the army’s intention of letting the Phalangists in,Minister David Levy, who was born in Morocco, warned that this would cause a disaster. Hiscolleagues ignored his warning.
Immediately upon entering the camps, the Phalangists started to butcher men, women andchildren indiscriminately.
The commander of the action, Eli Hweika, oversaw the action from the roof of the Israelidivisional command post, which was located right next to the camps. The officers of theIsraeli division commander, General Amos Yaron, overheard Hweika instructing his men bywalkie-talkie to kill women and children, too. They hastened to inform Yaron, but he ignoredthe message. (Later he admitted: “Our senses had become blunted.”)
During the night, while the massacre was going on (it lasted altogether three days), theIsraeli Chief-of-Staff, General Raphael Eytan, ordered the army to accede to thePhalangists’ request and light the area with flares. He also provided the Phalangists with atractor (which served, it is assumed, to bury the bodies).
A young Israeli officer who heard the horrible stories of the shocked women who had succeededin fleeing from the camps, ran from one officer to another, begging them to interfere. All ofthem refused.
After the massacre, the Begin government refused to order an independent investigation. In ahuge demonstration in Tel-Aviv (the mythological 400-thousand-demo), we compelled thegovernment to appoint a high-level state investigation committee, headed by Supreme Courtjudge Yitzhaq Kahan. It did a good job and its report included all the facts mentioned above. Inits conclusions, it found that the Minister of Defense (Sharon), the Chief-of-Staff and anumber of other senior officers bear “indirect responsibility” for the outrage. Some of usargued even then that the committee had bent backwards in order to protect the reputation ofthe state, and that from the same facts much more far-reaching conclusions could have beendrawn.
The committee recommended , inter alia , to dismiss the Minister of Defense from his office andto remove Yaron from the active command of troops in the field. But the committee did notrecommend to dismiss Sharon altogether from the government and from public life, neither didit dismiss Yaron from the army. It did not take any step against the Chief-of-Staff, because hewas about to finish his term anyhow. Other officers suffered minor penalties.
Today, Sharon is Prime Minister, practically commanding the army and Amos Yaron is DirectorGeneral of the Ministry of Defense. As a matter of fact, all those accused by the Kahan reporthave been promoted.
Most importantly, not one of those suspected of responsibility for the massacre was ever puton trial (as distifrom a commission of inquiry).
After the enactment of the Belgian law of universal jurisdiction, the survivors of themassacre sued Sharon and the officers in Brussels. It’s this case that has caused the presentuproar.
Nobody questions the integrity of the Belgian judicial system. If Sharon and his men areconfident of their innocence, why shouldn’t they stand trial and prove it? After all, theIsraeli government has put at their disposal its senior attorneys, paid by the state. (Onecould ask, of course, why I should pay for the legal defense of people put on trial for allegedwar crimes. But never mind.)
All this has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. The use of this defamation against everybodywho dares to criticize Sharon and his colleagues reminds one of Dr. Samuel Johnson’s sayings:”Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”
So you may eat Belgian chocolate. Even if it is of the bitter kind.