Belgian Democracy in Action
Liron Meister
28 December 2001 Email this story
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Aside from its famous chocolates and famous cows, Belgium is now better known for its infamous claim to be a fair and just democracy. A better description would be a plain old hypocrisy. What am I going on about and who really cares about a country no bigger than the size of South Africa´s Orange Free State?
Last June, a terrible event from history was resurrected. It was brought to life not to ensure that justice or truth be served, but rather to achieve a more sinister political agenda. I refer to the indictment of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon under the 1993 Belgian Law that entitles the state to prosecute any war criminal that has committed, or allowed to be committed, acts of genocide. More specifically, the words Sabra and Shatila come to mind. They were Palestinian refugee camps in which Christian Lebanese militiamen murdered several hundred people in 1982, during Israel’s war against Yasser Arafat and his henchmen. Arafat had, for years, used Lebanon and camps like Sabra and Shatila to launch hideous terror attacks inside Israel.
At the time, Ariel Sharon was Minister of Defense and the Kahan Commission investigating the events concluded that he was “indirectly responsible” in that he did not foresee that the Christians would take their revenge on the Palestinians for many years of persecution under PLO tyranny. However, the commission stressed clearly that Sharon, personally, was not criminally responsible nor did he have any intention to deliberately allow the murders to take place. To be criminally prosecuted in any Western democracy one must have more than just ministerial responsibility, it must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that there was fault. However, Belgian democracy thinks of itself as being above others and its own principles prevail.
Such arrogance must not be overlooked, let alone forgiven. What gives one democratic state the right to impose its laws on another, equally democratic state? Israel, as a democracy, which no one can doubt, adopts and enforces protection of all of those universal human rights that are all too often abused and flaunted by its dictatorial neighbours. It has a separate judiciary, like any other democracy, which independently protects the liberties of its citizens without the interference of a corrupt, totalitarian regime. Therefore, by what right do the Belgians second-guess the democratically reached decision of the Israeli commission of inquiry into Sharon’s role in Lebanon?
Would Americans keep quiet if Presidents Nixon or Johnson were to be prosecuted for the murders of about 500,000 Vietnamese during their war in Vietnam? Would the French sit back if De Gaulle was imprisoned for his role in the fight to maintain colonial domination over Algeria in the 1950’s? The answer is a thunderous no. These two thriving democracies would probably have vilified and undermined the prosecuting country for interfering with their democracies. Perhaps the Belgian law under which Sharon is being tried will be applied, retroactively, to Belgian leaders for the squalor and misery they left behind in their colonies in Africa. Heaven forbid! Yet, of course, Israel is different. For 2000 years Jews have always been different.
The Belgian law will not achieve justice for those who have truly suffered, but rather will allow them to be abused again, but this time by dictatorial regimes who will use this law to further expound their hateful and vilifying propaganda campaign against Israel. Such dictatorial regimes like Syria under Assad, who slaughtered twenty thousand of his own citizens, or Iraq under Saddam Hussein, who has massacred thousands of Kurds and Shiites, will never be prosecuted, but will be the first to scream and shout about Israel’s supposed abuse of fundamental rights. These states will be the first to support indicting, under this law, any Israeli leader, not because of their strong commitment to human rights, but, on the contrary, because of their wish to destroy Israel with whatever means are available. Today it is the mechanism of Belgian law, tomorrow the use of nuclear war.
Therefore how convenient it is that, during the current turmoil in the Middle East, Sharon should be prosecuted. Eight years have passed since the inception of the Belgian law in question, but only now have the victims, with funding from private donors, opportunely decided to bring the matter to trial. Twenty years have passed since the incident took place, but only now do they seek to expose their suffering during such a conveniently charged political environment.
However, this law will backfire on its makers with an equally strong force that will expose its true biased political character, as the Victims of Arab Terror have filed their own complaints against the father of modern terrorism, Yasser Arafat, for acts of genocide dating as far back as the Munich Olympic games.
Belgium, do not arrogantly impose your laws on us. While you preach a commitment to human rights in a Utopian fantasyland, Israel puts that commitment to practice in the harshest of realities. If Belgium were to be surrounded by such virulent enemies as Israel is, I would not be surprised if they resorted to their colonial habits of brute force and persecution. If Belgium contained even one pearl of wisdom, it would stick to milking its cows and producing fine chocolates instead of making such horrendous laws. |
