It's OK To Eat Belgian Chocolate

"Don't eat Belgian chocolate," the Israel consul in Florida ordered the large Jewish communitythere.

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-Nazi Belgium!

The Israeli ambassador was, of course, recalled from Brussels. No wonder, how can Israel keep an ambassadorin the world capital of anti-Semitism?

The storm broke when a Belgian court decided that Ariel Sharon can be sued for alleged war crimes, but onlyafter finishing his term as Prime Minister of Israel. Israel army officers connected with the 1982 massacre inthe 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 Belgium wants tojudge the officers of a second country for crimes committed in a third country, while the accused have noconnection at all with Belgium, are not on Belgium territory and the whole affair 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 of countries E, Fand G, all this in spite of the fact the crimes were committed before country A even 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 committed against Jews?

Well, it were the Jews who demanded, after World War II, that all countries put Nazi war criminals andtheir allies on trial. Eichmann was judged in Israel according to the Israeli "Law for bringing the Nazisand their Helpers to Justice", which does not recognize any borders. More recently the Knesset enactedanother law, enabling Israeli courts to judge perpetrators of any crime committed against Jews anywhere in theworld. If so, what's wrong with the Belgian law of "universal jurisdiction", that allows Belgiancourts to judge was criminals from all over the world?

Immanuel Kant promulgated the Categorical Imperative: "Act as if the principle by which you act wereabout to be turned into a universal law of nature". But then, Kant was probably an anti-Semite.

Hundreds of years ago, the world adopted a legal doctrine that allowed every country to judge and hangpirates, irrespective of their ethnic identity, origin and area of activity. The assumption was that thepirate is an enemy of humanity at large, and that therefore every country 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 other countries willfollow suit. Of course, it would be better if the International Criminal Court in The Hague would fulfil thisduty, but much time will pass before it will be able to. Immense political pressures are being exerted, manylimitations have been imposed, its hands and feet have been shackled. Worse, the only super-power, the UnitedStates, is openly trying to destroy 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 aworld parliament, will come into being. This order must include a world court and a world police force, thatwill judge conflicts between nations the way today's national courts judge conflicts between people. The roadthere is long and full of obstacles, decades will pass before humanity will reach this stage. But we muststrive towards this end. In the meantime, other countries must follow the Belgian example, in order toprogress along this way. Especially concerning war crimes.

Some will say that we should not extradite our fellow-citizens, that it is the duty of every state to judgeits war-criminals itself. But this is utopian: no country in the world has really done so. That is quitenatural: not only are states disinclined to admit to such shameful crimes and try to hide them, but generallysuch crimes are committed by agents of the state 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 commitment given to theAmerican mediator, Phillip Habib, not to do so. By that time, the PLO forces had already left the city.

From that moment on, West Beirut, including the Palestinian refugee camps Sabra and Shatila, became anIsraeli occupied territory, making the Israeli army responsible for everything happening there.

After the occupation, the IDF let the "Phalangists", members of an extreme Maronite Christiangroup, enter the two camps. These people has already committed heinous massacres in other Palestinian refugeecamps. They were headed by a notorious mass-murderer, Eli Hweika.

All senior Israeli officials involved with Lebanon knew that the Phalangists were committing atrocities inorder 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 DavidLevy, who was born in Morocco, warned that this would cause a disaster. His colleagues ignored his warning.

Immediately upon entering the camps, the Phalangists started to butcher men, women and childrenindiscriminately.

The commander of the action, Eli Hweika, oversaw the action from the roof of the Israeli divisional commandpost, which was located right next to the camps. The officers of the Israeli division commander, General AmosYaron, overheard Hweika instructing his men by walkie-talkie to kill women and children, too. They hastened toinform Yaron, but he ignored the message. (Later he admitted: "Our senses had become blunted.")

During the night, while the massacre was going on (it lasted altogether three days), the IsraeliChief-of-Staff, General Raphael Eytan, ordered the army to accede to the Phalangists' request and light thearea with flares. He also provided the Phalangists with a tractor (which served, it is assumed, to bury thebodies).

A young Israeli officer who heard the horrible stories of the shocked women who had succeeded in fleeingfrom the camps, ran from one officer to another, begging them to interfere. All of them refused.

After the massacre, the Begin government refused to order an independent investigation. In a hugedemonstration in Tel-Aviv (the mythological 400-thousand-demo), we compelled the government to appoint ahigh-level state investigation committee, headed by Supreme Court judge Yitzhaq Kahan. It did a good job andits report included all the facts mentioned above. In its conclusions, it found that the Minister of Defense(Sharon), the Chief-of-Staff and a number of other senior officers bear "indirect responsibility"for the outrage. Some of us argued even then that the committee had bent backwards in order to protect thereputation of the 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 and toremove Yaron from the active command of troops in the field. But the committee did not recommend to dismissSharon altogether from the government and from public life, neither did it dismiss Yaron from the army. It didnot take any step against the Chief-of-Staff, because he was about to finish his term anyhow. Other officerssuffered minor penalties.

Today, Sharon is Prime Minister, practically commanding the army and Amos Yaron is Director General of theMinistry of Defense. As a matter of fact, all those accused by the Kahan report have been promoted.

Most importantly, not one of those suspected of responsibility for the massacre was ever put on trial (asdistifrom a commission of inquiry).

After the enactment of the Belgian law of universal jurisdiction, the survivors of the massacre sued Sharonand the officers in Brussels. It's this case that has caused the present uproar.

Nobody questions the integrity of the Belgian judicial system. If Sharon and his men are confident of theirinnocence, why shouldn't they stand trial and prove it? After all, the Israeli government has put at theirdisposal its senior attorneys, paid by the state. (One could ask, of course, why I should pay for the legaldefense of people put on trial for alleged war crimes. But never mind.)

All this has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. The use of this defamation against everybody who dares tocriticize Sharon and his colleagues reminds one of Dr. Samuel Johnson's sayings: "Patriotism is the lastrefuge of a scoundrel."

So you may eat Belgian chocolate. Even if it is of the bitter kind.