Posted on 02/20/2003 9:02:29 AM PST by SJackson
By taking sides in a case like Sabra and Shatilla, by allowing this affair to take place on its soil and blaming Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Belgium is playing with fire. It is important for all to understand that if Belgium is opening this up for political purposes, it is making a dangerous move at a wrong time in history, at the wrong place, with the wrong victim.
Yes, a massacre took place in 1982, and it is a matter of public record who were the instigators and perpetrators. This was not the first massacre in Lebanon and probably not the last.
That same Palestinian side that filed a complaint against Ariel Sharon in a Belgian court is to blame for murders, distortion and massacres in Lebanon. A Lebanon that welcomed the Palestinians with open arms ended up a victim of the Palestinian gun and Palestinian terror. It is the PLO, and all the Palestinian armed gangs, that started the killings in Lebanon, established roadblocks, killed Christians during confession in Beirut, raped young girls in the fallen Christian town of Damour, Beirut, and Mount Lebanon. Where was the Belgian court then? Why was the BBC not covering Arafat and his murderers slaughtering Lebanese Christians - women and children? The whole world was silent in witnessing the massacre of the Christians in Lebanon. No one stood with them - not France, not the Vatican, not even Israel, in general; however, the late Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon did so on a personal, courageous basis.
The Christian Lebanese are not murderers, they reacted to extreme violence perpetrated upon them by the Palestinians, supposedly peaceful guests in a country that welcomed them in 1948. This was a time when the Christian militias acted independently of the Lebanese State in order to protect the existence of the Christian community in Lebanon. Why did the Belgian court not defend the Christian community in Lebanon from Palestinian gangsterism?
Publicizing the name of Ariel Sharon in such an affair is nothing more than political blackmail from a respected country in Europe. As a man who bravely fought and won wars in defense of Israel and the other minorities of the region, Ariel Sharon is no terrorist, nor is he evil. He is not Yasser Arafat, who ordered the slaughter of the American diplomat in Khartoum, or the shootings at Italy´s airport, or the Achile Lauro affair, to the various bombing in Paris, and the assassination policies in London. The Palestinian terrorist list is very long, ranging from Leila Khaled, to Okamoto in Lod, to Carlos in Beirut and Damascus, and many other people and areas.
Sabra and Shatilla was instigated and perpetrated by Elias Hobeika, a ruthless murderer working for Syrian intelligence. Today his profession is giving scuba lessons in a little seaport called D’bayeh, twenty miles north of Beirut. If the Palestinians really want to see justice, the road within Lebanon is a much shorter road than the one to Brussels. Hobeika is responsible for a long list of massacres and murders against civilians in Lebanon, the Christians, Muslims, Druze and Palestinians included. Yet, he does not fear justice, as he is under the protection of his Syrian friends. The Kahan Commission Report details his involvement.
The History of the Middle East is filled with massacres, and either you bring all those cases to justice or you bring none. Start with Saddam Hussein murdering and gassing Iraqi Kurds, to the Syrian perpetrators of the massacre of Hama in 1982, to the massacres of Black September in Jordan. Taking issue with one massacre that took place in Lebanon at the expense of another is a dishonest action and is a dangerous political stand for Belgium, with dangerous consequences and repercussions that might precipitate unpredictable, negative reactions.
Before indicting a brave General defending the only democracy in the Middle East, facing a fundamentalist Islamic enemy striking out at the West with no mercy, indict the ruthless Islamic despots that are using terrorism as an effective diplomatic tool against the West and America. These Islamists use the same methods as Yasser Arafat, which made him a famous man of "peace" - torching embassies in the world, targeting US, Israeli, and other diplomats, destroying and hijacking airplanes, and planting daily terrorism as a seed in our lives. These are de facto policies today in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and for the PLO.
Mixing apples and oranges in politics is a fatal mistake. Do not mix Africa or Europe with the Middle East. Africa is Africa, Europe is Europe, and the Middle East is the Middle East, and history is still in the making.
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Nagi N. Najjar is the Director of the Lebanon Foundation for Peace.
The US National Security Agency intercepted radiophone conversations between Arafat and the Khartoum terrorists which make it plain that not only did Arafat participate in the planning of this hostage-taking but that Arafat also gave the explicit order to kill those hostages.
Less than thirty years later, the White House hosts Arafat as an honored guest and Belgium gives Arafat's accusations against Israelis the stamp of legitimacy, and a murdered diplomat here and there doesn't mean a thing.
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