23 - 29 August 2001
Issue No.548
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 23 - 29 August 2001 Issue No.548 |
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Criminals at large
America and Israel are, perhaps not surprisingly, wielding as much influence as they can command to persuade the Belgian government to drop the case against Sharon. Whether or not the US manages to thwart plans to try the Israeli prime minister for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Sabra and Shatila massacres and other atrocities committed against the Lebanese and Palestinians during his term as minister of defence in the 1980s, the families of those killed in Sabra and Shatila, by filing suit against him, have alerted the world not only to the fact that he is a war criminal but also to America's anti-humanitarian policies. Sharon's trial, regardless of its consequences, is a just cause and a triumphant affirmation of the principles of international law.
The US's policy of "humanitarian intervention" allowed it to deploy missiles, planes and bombs in the course of the Serbian war, paying attention neither to the struggle to restore peace to the Balkans nor to the intentions of the warring parties. The same humanitarian sentiment, one surmises, lies behind the US's staunch opposition to the plan to send international observers to the occupied territories to expose Israeli state terrorism against the Palestinians -- a process of racial discrimination and ethnic cleansing masterminded by the same war criminal. The US administration has claimed that the actions of the Israeli government are "justified," in a development reminiscent of the time when the US censured the Red Cross for describing Israel's expansionist settlement policy as a crime against humanity.
It is thus particularly cheering that, America's might notwithstanding, there are those who make it clear what American humanitarian intervention really implies, insisting that nobody, however powerful or well-connected, is immune to the dictates of international justice.
This week's Soapbox speaker is a journalist at Al-Ahali newspaper.
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