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Wednesday, November 07, 2001 
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Belgium's Dangerous Interference
by Nagi N. Najjar
Director, Lebanon Foundation for Peace

By taking side in a case like Sabra & Chatilla, Belgium is playing with fire by allowing this affair to take place on its soil and blaming Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. It is important for all to understand that if Belgium is opening this effort for political purposes, and is making a dangerous move at a wrong time of 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 Belgium 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 Palestinians armed gangs that started the killings in Lebanon, establishing roadblocks, killing Christians during confession in Beirut, raping young girls in the fallen Christian town of Damour, Beirut, and Mount Lebanon. Where was the Belgium 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 base. 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 Belgium 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. For a man who fought and won brave wars in the Middle East defending Israel and the other minorities of the region, Ariel Sharon is no terrorist nor evil. He is not Yasser Arafat who ordered the slaughter of the American diplomats 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 others 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 Dbayeh 20 miles north of Beirut. If the Palestinians really want to see justice, the road within Lebanon is a much shorter road than the one of Brussel's. Hobeika is responsible for a long list of massacres and murders against the Christians in Lebanon, the Muslims, the Druze and the Palestinians included. Yet, he does not fear justice as he is under the protection of his Syrian friends.The Kahane Report details his involvement.

The History of the Middle East was filled by massacres, and either you bring all those cases to justice or you bring none. Start with Saddam Husayn murdering and gassing Iraqi Kurds, to the perpetrators of the massacre of Hama by Syria 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 action against the West and America. These Islamists use the same traits of Yasser Arafat that made him a famous man of "peace" by torching Embassies in the world, targeting US, Israeli, and foreign diplomats, destroying and hijacking airplanes, and planting terrorism as a daily seed of life. These are de facto policies today in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and the PLO.

Mixing apples and oranges in politics is a fatal mistake, do not mix Africa nor 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.