Elie Hobeika, a key witness in the Sabra-Chatila war crimes case being pursued in a Belgian court against Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, was blown up outside his house in Beirut on Jan. 24, 2002, together with three bodyguards and a civilian bystander. The car-bomb was the work of professional assassins in the employ of Mossad, the Israeli secret service. The explosion occurred two days after Hobeika agreed to give evidence against Sharon in Belgium. Hobeika had met Belgian Senators Josy Dubie and Vincent van Quickenborne in east Beirut, agreeing to be a witness at any trial of Sharon for the Sabra and Chatila massacre.

Elie Hobeika

Belgian lawyers seeking to indict Sharon expressed their "profound shock" at Hobeika's murder. "Mr Hobeika had several times expressed his wish to assist the Belgian inquiry on the massacres at Sabra and Chatila," a statement from the Belgian lawyers said. "His determination to do so was reported widely on the eve of his assassination. The elimination of the key protagonist who offered to assist with the inquiry is an obvious attempt to undermine our case."

Marwan Hamadeh, the Lebanese minister for refugees stated,"My initial evaluation is that of course Israel doesn't want witnesses against it in this historic case in Belgium..." Israeli Prime Minister Sharon dismissed the charges: "I am simply saying, from our point of view, we have no link to this subject at all, and this is not worthy of a comment," Sharon told reporters.

When a people lost 6,000,000 lives in Nazi Germany, where does its new nation place the boundary for collateral damage?

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Additional reading: Victor Ostrovsky: How Mossad Got America to Bomb Libya & Vanunu's Case - Israel Nuclear Power

"Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason."  

IPF believes, the organization's president Seymour D. Reich told Rice, "that our country and this administration can make a real difference in helping to achieve a realistic and viable two-state solution."

"We back the direction of the Bush administration in moving the process forward, in a step-by-step approach," Reich continued. "And we stand ready to assist you in order to build a bridge from Prime Minister Sharon's courageous disengagement this summer to President Bush's vision of two states living side by side in peace and security."

The meeting with Rice was held in response to a letter sent by IPF leaders to her, in which IPF called on the administration to work towards simultaneous actions by the Palestinian Authority to "bring to an end to all violence directed against Israelis" and by Israel to "freeze existing settlement expansion" and "remove unauthorized settlement outposts".

In their letter, the IPF leaders requested a meeting with Secretary Rice to "gain a deeper understanding of our government's hopes and objectives in the months ahead" and to convey the "strong support" that President Bush and she have "from Jewish Americans on both sides of the aisle."