Interview met Verhofstadt in Israelische krant Ha'aretz

[Pascal L.]

Rekindling a Belgian friendship

By Sharon Sadeh


BRUSSELS - In his modest office, graced by a large
19th century oil painting of Italian farmers, and
a framed picture of King Leopold II as a child,
Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt can feel
satisfied. Tall and smiling, he exudes
self-confidence and humor. Like Tony Blair, who
serves as his source of inspiration, Verhofstadt
was returned to office for a second consecutive
term in May 2003, borne on an unprecedented wave
of popularity. As opposed to most member states of
the European Union, during his first term Belgium
showed economic growth, its political system
demonstrated stability, and the danger from the
far right was sidelined.




This series of impressive
achievements was marred by a
controversial foreign policy,
which almost condemned
Belgium to international
isolation. The affair of the
prosecution of Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon -
accused in a Belgian court of
crimes against humanity

because of his ostensible involvement in the
Sabra and Chatila massacre - caused a
diplomatic rift between the two countries, and
dealt a mortal blow to Belgium's image in
Israel. Rehabilitation of relations with
Jerusalem was one of the central issues
preoccupying the Verhofstadt government during
its first months of office, alongside desperate
efforts to rehabilitate relations with the
U.S., following Belgium's opposition to the war
in Iraq.

In his first interview, last Wednesday, with an
Israeli newspaper, Verhofstadt says that now,
after the court has canceled the proceedings
against Sharon and former Defense Ministry
director general Amos Yaron, he wants to turn
over a new leaf in relations with Israel.

"I would like to start a new chapter in our
relations with Israel," he says. "I found it an
absolute necessity to improve [Belgian-Israeli
relations] and to solve our outstanding
problems. The two countries have strong
commercial and economic ties. Therefore we have
worked very hard on the issue of the Universal
Competence Law [under which Sharon was indicted
for alleged war crimes - S.S.] and have made
some necessary adaptations."

The 1993 Universal Competence Law granted
Belgian courts the authority to prosecute
anyone, with no limitations of place or time,
on suspicions of crimes against humanity. Legal
scholars considered this legislation
unprecedented, and diplomatic sources defined
it as "legal neocolonialism." The Belgians
claimed that such a law was necessary, and
adopted it officially in 1999, after the brutal
genocide carried out in the former Belgian
colony of Rwanda. But according to Verhofstadt,
"We weren't sufficiently aware of the fact
that, in the past two years, there has been
clear abuse of the law by some political
groups, which came to Belgium in order to
attack some governments, as in the case of
Israel. We changed our legislation so that if
there is a complaint against a foreign citizen
in a country with a working judicial system,
there is no need to accept complaints against
those citizens, as in the case of Prime
Minister Sharon and [former IDF General] Amos
Yaron."

Israel kept close track of the Belgian
government's position, and believed, based on a
secret understanding with Verhofstadt during a
visit to Israel in late 2001, that he would
work to cancel the proceedings against Sharon,
which at the time had been approved by the
courts. While the Belgian government dragged
its feet, though, its court system went into
action. An investigating judge was appointed,
and proceedings began in preparation for
Sharon's trial. Israel found itself in an
absurd situation, since it had signed an
agreement on legal cooperation with Belgium,
which includes the extradition of suspects. In
other words, if the Belgians had issued an
international arrest warrant, Israel would have
had to extradite its prime minister to
Belgium.

Israel began to apply pressure, and was joined
by the U.S., which feared indictments against
senior members of its own administration.
Verhofstadt denies that the change in the law
was accelerated due to U.S. pressure. He says
that the Belgians had begun to examine the need
for a change in the legislation in 2001, and
began proceedings for changing it in early
2003. "We made the first change in the law in
April 2003. It was only after the May general
elections that there was tremendous pressure on
the part of the Americans. We adapted the
change for the second time in July."

What kind of messages did you receive from
Israel?

"That's a very difficult question to answer. I
always try to be positive in life and to look
forward. This question belongs to the past."

Diplomatic sources confirmed that Israel had
threatened Belgium with a series of sanctions
(see box), but the Belgians claimed in response
that they cannot interfere with the work of the
judiciary. Within a short time, the Belgians
discovered that these weren't just empty words.
As soon as the suit against Sharon was approved
in February 2003, Israel recalled its
ambassador from Brussels, and at the same time
the U.S. began to talk about boycotting Belgian
products.

A diplomatic hullabaloo

These threats increased greatly after it turned
out that, just as in Sharon's case, the
Belgians were liable to go all the way with
their lawsuits against George Bush Sr. and
Secretary of State Colin Powell, for their part
in the previous war against Iraq. At the same
time, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
declared that as long as there was a threat of
prosecution hovering over them, American senior
officials would boycott Belgium, and the U.S.
may even consider discontinuing investments in
NATO headquarters in Belgium.

Off the record, the U.S. warned Belgium it was
planning to transfer NATO headquarters to
another country. These declarations convinced
the Belgians finally to abandon the law in its
original version, and to limit it
considerably.

Verhofstadt says that despite the criticism from
Israel, Belgians do not regret the law, and
claims that there is full justification for
such legislation, despite the diplomatic
problems. "Such legislation is necessary
because in some parts of the world there is no
democracy or functioning judicial system. It is
a positive thing that you can go to another
country to complain and obtain justice. Crimes
against humanity, like genocide, are of
universal importance." He says that the revised
Universal Competence Law "can be compared to
similar legislation in most countries of the
EU, in Canada, and even in Israel."

Calming the restive locals

Running parallel to the legal problems with
Sharon, Verhofstadt had to confront an
unprecedented wave of attacks against the local
Jewish community, which reached a peak with a
physical attack on the chief rabbi of Belgium,
and a number of arson cases at Belgian
synagogues. Verhofstadt says that "this lasted
for a short period of time, a few weeks only,"
during Operation Defensive Shield and the
escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
in 2002.

"We immediately announced a series of measures.
We sent messages to say that we cannot accept
such behavior where we have to fear attacks on
Jews and the Jewish community. I expressed
myself on several occasions, not only in the
press but also at public meetings with the
Jewish community. I also met with the
leadership of the Arab community in Belgium,
and asked them to take measures, and they did
so. So after a short period of tension around
April 2002, the situation is under control
again. There haven't been any incidents since
then, for more than a year now."

At the same time, he says, his government acted
to solve all remaining issues from the period
of World War II, including that of Jewish
property taken during the war. "We were one of
the countries where this problem wasn't solved.
So we had to work on new legislation, we
created a foundation to commemorate the
Holocaust. We can now say that we have very
good relations between the Belgian political
authorities and the Jewish community."

But while the Belgians have tried to correct
their relations with Israel and the Jewish
community as quickly as possible, Verhofstadt
is less optimistic over the political process.
"There isn't a single party that has the
beginning of a solution for how to get everyone
back to the `road map' again. I was involved
when I served as president of the EU, during
the second half of 2001. My conclusion was that
we missed a number of opportunities at that
moment. Maybe I am too optimistic and I was
naive at the time, but I thought, following my
many contacts with Colin Powell, with [then
Foreign Minister] Shimon Peres and with [EU
foreign policy chief] Javier Solana, that we
had an opportunity to restart negotiations on a
peace process. But in October and November of
2001, there was again an increase of violence,
and that was the end of the little dream we
had."

Verhofstadt sharply attacked the Palestinian
Authority, and said "I think there is
justification for Israel's demanding zero
violence on the part of the Palestinians before
really entering a discussion of a solution to
the conflict. I think that there is no will, or
no courage, and not even the possibility for
them to create a zero violence situation. The
international community has to increase its
pressure on the Palestinian side against these
attacks against terrorism.

"We are not even at the beginning of creating a
climate in which we can bring together the two
parties. Everything we are doing - the road
map, and the Quartet - all these attempts fail
on one thing: how to create confidence between
the two sides."

However, he did level criticism on the route of
the separation fence. "I don't think that it
brings a solution to this conflict closer. The
fence is not following the Green Line. It will
make it much more difficult to find a solution,
because there is now a new situation that is
going further away from the solution that was
the basis of the Oslo agreement."

He feels that the Geneva Accords are an
important step, despite the reservations of the
Israeli government, because "it shows that
maybe there are solutions to the conflict. The
Accords may help the two sides to come
together, to find a solution, to create a
climate of more confidence. The agreement has
already had a little bit of an impact; the fact
that everybody in the Israeli government is now
defending the road map is certainly a step in
the right direction." Verhofstadt believes the
importance of the agreement is limited,
however, because the elected governments of the
two parties are the ones who have to sign it,
but "it can create a little bit of confidence
that can be a basis for an understanding for a
solution in the near future."

Verhofstadt neglected to mention that at the
time of the interview, Belgian Foreign Minister
Louis Michel was meeting in Paris with Yossi
Beilin and Yasser Abed Rabbo [the architects of
the Geneva Accords] and expressed support of
the initiative. Verhofstadt's bureau chief told
Haaretz afterward that "the prime minister knew
about the meeting in Paris, but he didn't
attribute any particular importance to it, and
therefore didn't mention it. Foreign Minister
Michel meets with dozens of people every day."

The Belgians refrained from meeting with the
representatives of the initiative in Brussels,
in order not to anger the Israeli government
before the visit of Foreign Minister Silvan
Shalom, for fear that such a meeting would be
portrayed as formal approval. Shalom is
planning to visit Brussels next month for
discussions about the association agreement
with the EU and is also expected to meet with
the Belgian government. Verhofstadt says that
"We need to improve the EU-Israel relationship
and to intensify it."

And watch out for Iran

Verhofstadt explained that he strongly objects
to Iran's efforts to arm itself with nuclear
weapons. "This is a threat to the stability of
the region and to Europe, it is a threat to
stability worldwide." He pointed out that the
EU, which is working together on this issue,
has managed to get the Iranians to agree to the
demands of the International Atomic Energy
Commission. "If we work together, maybe we
could also have better results in the Middle
East conflict... If there is a little more
trust from the Israeli side. I always said to
Sharon: Use the EU in solving your conflict,
rather than seeing the EU as a danger to your
country. There's an impression in Israel that
Europe is against us [Israel] and on the
Palestinian side - it's not true. We are not
one-sided, and it's enough to take a look at
the decisions we publish. We are willing to
help, if you want us to do so."

Belgium, Al-Qaida and the Mossad

BRUSSELS - Verhofstadt is proud of the fact
that during his term of rotating European Union
president, in the second half of 2001, the EU
made very significant progress in its fight
against international terrorism. "It was under
the Belgian presidency that we made a huge step
forward. In just two months after September 11,
we did more for the war on terrorism than was
done in all the 10 preceding years," he says.

Among other things, the EU prepared a list of
terror organizations and agreed on steps to cut
off financial and operational aid to them. A
decision, currently in its final stages of
ratification, was taken to issue pan-European
arrest warrants against terror suspects, and
intelligence coordination and cooperation was
boosted.

But Belgium, like other countries, is seen as
"the soft underbelly" when it comes to the war
on international terrorism. Belgium, and
several other states with extensive Moslem
communities, has a weak infrastructure of
security services, which did little to deal
with fundamentalist terror activities.

This fact was exploited by terror organizations,
primarily Al-Qaida, Hamas and Hezbollah, which
found refuge and fertile ground for recruiting
resources and activists.

The intelligence services of Israel, the United
States and other West European countries were
well aware of this, and, over the past two
years, have significantly boosted their
surveillance operations in Holland, Belgium and
Luxembourg, in coordination with the local
authorities.

Israel has moved the focus of its intelligence
activities from Paris to Brussels, and
officials from Verhofstadt's office made it
clear to Jerusalem, even during the days of the
low point in relations between the two
countries, that they have no intention of
restricting the activities of the Mossad
there.

Playing the foot-dragging card
BRUSSELS - Israel reacted with apathy and,
according to senior diplomatic sources,
dangerous complacency to the reports in 2001
about moves in the Belgian capital to stand
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and former IDF
senior officers on trial for their alleged
involvement in the 1982 Sabra and Chatila
massacre. In June 2001, when moves were
underway to present a lawsuit against Sharon,
the possibility of employing diplomatic
sanctions against Belgium was discounted in
Jerusalem. Instead, it was decided to act on a
legal basis and to neutralize the threat
through procedural foot-dragging. The foreign
and justice ministries were in charge of
handling the matter with Sharon's then-bureau
chief, Uri Shani. Diplomatic sources told
Haaretz the intention was to gain time and try
to postpone the debate on the prime minister,
particularly for as long as a case was being
heard in which Congo charged that Belgium had
violated agreements in issuing an international
arrest warrant for its foreign minister on
suspicion of crimes against humanity. The
assessment was the Congo would win its case in
the International Tribunal at The Hague.

Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt visited Israel at
the end of 2001 and promised to work toward
canceling the legal steps being taken against
Sharon.

Israel appointed Ephraim Halevy, former head of
Mossad, and at the time, chairman of the
National Security Council, to coordinate
Israel's position vis-a-vis Belgium. He
conducted several secret meetings with
Verhofstadt and his senior diplomatic advisor,
Peter Moors, in order to find a solution to the
problem.

Israel threatened not only to sever diplomatic
relations with Belgium but also to activate her
lobby in the U.S. to undermine Belgium's
standing and to prevent the EU from any
involvement in the Middle East peace process.
The Belgians took the threats very seriously
and, following additional pressure from the
U.S., they started the process to abolish the
case against Sharon.

Last month, the Belgian Supreme Court finally
canceled all proceedings against Sharon and
Yaron and also against the senior American
officials.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/354031.html