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The Times Argus, March 21, 2003

Let’s give thanks to ‘Old Europe’

By Mark L. Hage

Three cheers for Old Europe! Not only has it spent long months tutoring George Bush in international diplomacy, but it has also taken on Ariel Sharon, Israel’s prime minister. On February 12, Belgium’s Supreme Court ruled that Sharon could be tried for war crimes under that country’s “universal competence” law once he leaves office. The decision gives new life to a lawsuit brought against Sharon by survivors of the Sabra and Shatila refugee camp massacres in Lebanon in 1982.

A Palestinian refugee’s life has virtually no significance in Israel, but Sharon may yet discover how precious that life is in Belgium. This is because that country’s universal competence law, adopted in 1993, confers on the courts the authority to try cases of war crimes and genocide regardless of their place of origin.

On September 16, 1982, as Minister of Defense, Sharon authorized Lebanese Christian Phalangists to enter the defenseless camps of Sabra and Shatila, which were ringed by Israeli troops. The militiamen, trained, financed, and equipped by Israel, massacred and tortured Palestinians until the 18th of September. The Israelis provided logistical and organizational support to the operation, including food, water, flares for night operations, aerial maps of the camps, and ammunition. They also supplied the killers with bulldozers to dig mass graves, one of the largest being in full view of Israel’s forward command post. One field study of the massacre from 1982 to 1984 confirmed 1,390 dead and estimated the total number of victims at 3,500.

Human Rights Watch declared the Belgium court decision “… a huge victory not only for the victims of Sabra and Shatila massacres, but for all victims of grave crimes who have put their hopes in the Belgian law of universal competence.” The Israelis were somewhat less elated and recalled their ambassador in protest. Let them recall instead their abduction of Adolf Eichmann in 1960 from South America. A former Nazi Gestapo official, Eichmann was tried and executed in Israel for his seminal role in the extermination of European Jews and others during World War II. I’m not holding my breath waiting for Belgian commandos to swoop into Tel Aviv to arrest Ariel Sharon, but the thought sustains me in these difficult times.

Mark L. Hage
Montpelier, VT