Copyright © 2001 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com

 

Chance of Arrest in Palestinian Rights Cases

JERUSALEM The Israeli Foreign Ministry has sent a warning to government, army and security officials. Be careful in choosing destinations when traveling abroad, it cautioned, because certain countries might be prepared to charge ranking Israelis with violating Palestinians' human rights.

The advisory that went out last week was not worded quite that bluntly. It recommended, as a senior ministry official put it Friday, that high-level officials "do their homework" to avoid stumbling into "a legal embarrassment."

But the message was clear: Some countries, notably in Europe, believe that Israel has been unduly harsh toward the Palestinians, firing on young protesters disproportionately, targeting Islamic extremists for assassination, and restricting the movement of ordinary people to such an extent that Palestinians say their economy is nearing collapse.

Israel's insistence that Palestinians have their own leaders to blame for their troubles, and that whatever it does is purely in the name of security, leaves many Europeans cold.

So watch out, the Foreign Ministry told Israeli officials. This is a new age of lawyers without borders when it comes to human rights. Prosecutors are prepared to reach far beyond their own lands to put on trial political figures accused of gross violations. Witness, Israeli officials say, the international cases brought against Augusto Pinochet of Chile and Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia.

While Israelis blanch at the notion that they even remotely qualify for the same league as those two men, they are well aware that Israel often falls short of human rights standards as interpreted in Western Europe.

As a result, the Foreign Ministry has begun compiling a list of nations that claim "universal jurisdiction" in certain cases. Potential worry spots for the Israelis are said to include Belgium, Britain and Spain.

"We're not in a panic," a senior official said, "but I think we must know the facts. And if some system is getting crazy, we should be aware of it."

Concerns here about potential vulnerability have been fueled by two separate cases: an attempt in Belgium to charge the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, with war crimes, and unhappiness in Denmark because Israel has named a former chief of the Shin Bet security service as its new ambassador.


 

The Sharon case goes back 19 years, to the massacre of hundreds of unarmed Palestinian refugees in Lebanon after Israel's 1982 invasion to root out the Palestine Liberation Organization.

The killings in the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps were done by Lebanese Christian militiamen, known as Phalangists.

But they were allied with Israel, and an official Israeli investigation later concluded that Mr. Sharon, as defense minister and architect of the invasion, bore "indirect responsibility" for the mass deaths.

He and other Israeli officials should have realized that a massacre was probable, the inquiry found, and should have immediately stepped in to stop the Phalangists. Mr. Sharon was forced to resign. Ever since, Sabra and Chatila have cast a shadow over his career.

Now that he is prime minister, the massacre has come front and center again, although there is nothing to suggest that new evidence has emerged.

The BBC broadcast a documentary on the subject in mid-June. A day later, lawyers for 23 Sabra and Chatila survivors asked a Belgian court to indict Mr. Sharon, citing a law that authorizes trials in Belgium for war crimes, no matter where they occur. A court decision has yet to be made.

"Please understand, these people are looking for justice," Luc Walleyn, a Belgian lawyer for the survivors, said in Jerusalem last week. But Israelis do not understand, including many who have long been passionately anti-Sharon.

They see the Belgian case as an example of European pro-Arab, anti-Israel and perhaps even anti-Jewish bias. At the least, government officials have said, it is part of an effort to undermine Mr. Sharon politically during this crisis with the Palestinians.

Mr. Sharon and his government has hired a Belgian lawyer to head off a possible indictment.

The Denmark situation involves Carmi Gillon, who was the Shin Bet chief in the mid-1990s. Two weeks ago, he outraged many Danes when he said he endorsed using "moderate physical pressure" during police interrogations of suspected terrorists.

There was some talk in Copenhagen about arresting Mr. Gillon the moment he stepped off the plane. That threat quickly faded, but not Danish displeasure with Israel. In turn, the Israeli foreign minister, Shimon Peres, dug in his heels, despite rumblings in his ministry that perhaps Mr. Gillon could represent Israel somewhere else.

The Shin Bet has saved many lives by stopping suicide bombers before they could blow themselves up, Mr. Peres said in Parliament.

It was not lost on some Israelis that they themselves have in the past supported the "globalization of the criminal international law," as it was called by Alan Baker, a legal adviser to the Foreign Ministry.

Mr. Baker mentioned the Holocaust, seemingly referring to Israel's abduction of the notorious Nazi figure Adolf Eichmann from Argentina in 1960. Mr. Eichmann was put on trial in Israel, found guilty and hanged in 1962.

"We always had an interest in true criminals being brought to justice," Mr. Baker told Israeli radio. The problem now, he said, is "a tendency to exploit this good thing for political achievements such as delegitimizing the state of Israel and its leaders."

Copyright © 2001 The International Herald Tribune