ISRAEL - July 25 - Leaders May Face Trials In Europe.

The Foreign Ministry is contacting European states whose laws cover non-citizens and acts committed outside their territories "to avoid an undue politicisation of the international criminal law". PM Sharon, facing court trial in Belgium over the 1982 massacre of Palestinian refugees at Beirut's Sabra and Shatila camps, has hired a lawyer upon the advice of Attorney-Gen. Eliakim Rubenstein. On July 27, the FT quoted ex-ambassador to the UN and Int'l law Prof. Yuhuda Blum as saying: "It is a farcical situation because you have to ask yourself why doesn't anyone raise the question of operatives of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation who travel around the world". But Aeyal Gross, a director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, cited Israel's demolition of houses and assassination of those it regards as terrorists as creating potential difficulties with other countries. (The intensification of the conflict with the PA has coincided with the trend towards expanding jurisdiction for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Human rights advisers said Israel itself had set a precedent with the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi war criminal, for crimes committed before the state of Israel was set up. One of the other leaders or officials who might face such trials is Chief of Staff Gen. Shaul Mofaz who, apart from ordering targetted killings of Palestinian militants and destruction of much of PA's territories and buildings, causing hundreds of deaths, is held responsible for the demolition of many Palestinian homes. Another is newly appointed Ambassador to Denmark Carni Gillon - see above).