If you wrote a novel in which a tiny country stated that it was going to put all the world's "war criminals" on trial, it might be entertaining, but everyone would dismiss the idea as absurd. Now, following on the heels of the Sharon trial-that-will-never-be is this:
Israelis to File Charges Against Arafat in Belgium
By Dan Williams
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Lawyers representing Israeli casualties of attacks by Palestinians flew to Brussels on Thursday to petition a Belgian court to try Palestinian President Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) for alleged crimes against humanity.
A 1993 law allows Belgian courts to prosecute foreigners for human rights violations committed outside Belgium.
Two lawsuits were filed in Brussels earlier this year against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) over the 1982 massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila camps near Beirut by Lebanese Christian militia allied to Israel.
An Israeli inquiry in 1983 found Sharon indirectly responsible.
Senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat called the planned lawsuit against Arafat ``a political step to distract the attention of the world from the war crimes (charges) Sharon is facing.''
One of the lawyers representing 30 claimants in the Israeli group, called the Terror Victims Association, said there was no connection between their suit and the one against Sharon.
``Our researchers were at work on our case -- which deals with crimes dating back more than a quarter-century -- well before the Sharon case came about,'' group attorney Yaacov Rubin, former head of the Israeli Bar Association, told reporters.
The lawsuit requires the approval of a special magistrate before it can be pursued.
The Sharon suit is still being assessed to determine whether he is immune as a serving prime minister, and whether he can be held responsible for an incident which predates the Belgian law.
PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAUMA
Similar complications face the Israeli suit, according to an expert in European law.
``The complainants will have to prove that they were all personally victimized by Palestinian violence, and they are not simply trying to offset the Sharon suit,'' Tel Aviv-based analyst Marc Daugherty told Reuters.
``Another challenge will be establishing Yasser Arafat's command culpability in each incident.''
One of the claimants, Arie Buznah, said he suffers psychological trauma in a 1974 attack by Palestinian gunmen on a group of high school students on a field trip in northern Israel.
Twenty-two teenagers were killed in the northern town of Maalot and 60 wounded.
``The terrorists' commander was (Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine leader) Nayef Hawatmeh, but he answered to Yasser Arafat, head of the Palestine Liberation Organization (news - web sites),'' said Buznah.
Other petitioners included relatives of soldiers killed by Palestinians resisting Israel's occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (news - web sites).
Israel seized the territories during the 1967 Middle East war and Palestinians began an uprising against the occupation almost 14 months ago.
Attorney Yehudit Shachor, whose son was killed by Palestinian militants while hiking in the Judean Desert in 1995, said she was aware the lawsuit might not be approved, but that it should still be filed.
``Arafat has become the world's darling, and we have to present him as the arch-terrorist that he is,'' said Shachor, a member of the delegation that flew to Belgium.
Erekat rejected the charge. ``The whole world knows that President Arafat is not a war criminal,'' he told Reuters. ``He is defending the freedom of his people and its independence and he is struggling to achieve peace.''
Another group, the New York-based World Committee for Justice and Peace, said it planned to file suit against Arafat in Belgium on behalf of 20 Israeli claimants.
It is months, if not weeks away, that Belgium indicts President Bush on charges of killing Iraqi children. I must have missed the news the day power to determine punishment regarding events in every nation of the world was handed over to Belgium.
Should someone who commits a racist act in Belgium be extradicted for trial in Papua New Guinea should that island nation enact a law that says it has authority? If Burkina Faso enacts such a law, and an Iraqi files a complaint there against former President George H.W. Bush off he goes on a plane to Africa?
More evidence of a world gone mad?
We can only hope that sorting through all these matters costs Belgium $100 billion, and bankrupts these lunatics. |
