Michael Newdow, an atheist, said that while his daughter was not required to join classmates in reciting the pledge, she was nevertheless hurt by being compelled to “watch and listen as her state-employed teacher in her state-run school leads her classmates in a ritual proclaiming that there is a God”.Professor Vikram Amar, of the University of California’s Hastings College of Law, said: “If [the ruling] survives and really does mean what it says, then arguably it could call into question a lot of other practices that we take for granted. I think there is a very good chance that the Supreme Court will be interested in this one.”. Lawyers for the 1982 Palestinian victims of the Sabra and Chatila refugee camp massacres in Lebanon will appeal against yesterday’s Belgian court ruling that decided Ariel Sharon – held “personally responsible” for the killings by Israel’s own commission of inquiry – cannot be indicted for the slaughter. “A trial which began with more politics than law ends with more law than politics,” Daniel Shek, a foreign affairs department official, remarked.

“We, from the beginning, trusted the Belgian courts and I am happy we were not disappointed.”But the Israeli state, which took up Mr Sharon’s case only hours before the Belgian lawyers’ chief witness, Elie Hobeika, was killed by a car bomb in Beirut, may still have problems to come. Mr Hobeika, who led Israel’s Phalangist militia into the camps, announced last January he would give evidence to the courts – but was killed the next day. Israel denied all responsibility for his murder.The three lawyers behind the appeal said yesterday: “Impunity continues notably for Mr Ariel Sharon who, as the person in command of the operation which was carried out ‘under his supervision’, was found ‘personally responsible’ for those massacres by an Israeli commission of inquiry.”Chibli Mallat, the Lebanese lawyer who has unearthed new evidence that Israeli troops gave massacre survivors to the camp murderers for execution after the initial slaughter, says there will be an appeal.War crimes proceedings have been brought in Belgium against Yasser Arafat, President Saddam Hussein, President Fidel Castro, ex-president Hashemi Rafsanjani of Iran and President Laurent Gbagbo of the Ivory Coast. They will all, no doubt, be breathing a sigh of relief after this judgment.. Elections could deliver a more radical and anti-Israeli government, because the Islamists may well put up independent candidates.The elections, which follow Mr Bush’s demand for reforms as a condition for US support for statehood, will be the first since 1996. The stage is set for a political confrontation in which Mr Arafat will press Ariel Sharon for an extensive withdrawal of its military – arguing that the poll cannot take place under the barrels of Israeli guns – and for international observers.Yesterday, there was no sign of a reduction of Israel’s extensive military presence in the occupied territories. At least 700,000 Palestinians were confined to their homes by a curfew imposed by the Israeli army, which has reoccupied seven of the eight main Palestinian- administered West Bank towns.In one of these, Jenin, officials said a seven-year-old boy was shot dead by Israeli troops, the fifth Arab child to be killed by the army in the town within five days.An Israeli army spokeswoman said the military was investigating the incident, but said the child was believed to have been hurt when troops used “riot dispersal methods” to break up an approaching crowd.

Last week, Israeli troops killed three children, also in what it later said was an attempt to disperse a crowd – by firing tanks shells.A separate election drama looms in occupied Arab east Jerusalem, which has long been regarded by Israel as part of its unified capital. Mr Sharon has steadily increased Israel’s hold on the entire city, closing down the PLO’s headquarters and several other Palestinian institutions. One senior Palestinian source said: “If there are no elections in Jerusalem, there will be no elections at all.”The elections – for the “presidency” of the PA and for the Palestinian Legislative Council – were announced by an Arafat loyalist, Saeb Erekat.They were likely to be held between 10 and 20 January, he said Municipal elections would follow in March. In the meantime, a 100-day plan would be enacted, under which the PA’s financial, judicial and security branches would be reformed.What is unclear is how reforms – though long overdue and widely supported by the Palestinian populations – will make Israel any more secure from attack by Palestinian nationalist militias, who consider themselves to be fighting against an illegal occupation, including the continued building of Jewish settlements on their land. Nor are Palestinians confident that an overhaul of their half-collapsed government, long known to be corrupt and inept, will satisfy Israel.Israel is certain to scrutinise any election that maintains Yasser Arafat in power for signs of foul play. The last election in January 1996 was declared to be fair by international observers, including the former US president Jimmy Carter.