From: Ismail Zayid

Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2000 5:13 PM

Subject: How Long must Israel remain above International Law?

 The Editor
Orlando Sentinel.

I applaud Charley Reese’s courageous article {"The right to criticise Israel" Dec. 7}. The U.S’. continuing unquestioning support for Israel defies credibility and its claim to be an "honest broker" in the Middle East conflict and the leader of the free world, and to uphold international legitimacy and the UN. Charter.

The Palestinian people, who are being callously murdered, men, women and children, by Israeli forces using American armoury and US dollars, are calling for freedom and justice. The people of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem have been under illegal Israeli occupation for 33 years, in defiance of international law and repeated Security Council resolutions. They have been brutalised tortured and dehumanised. Thousands of their homes demolished, including total villages erased from the face of the earth, including my own village of Beit Nuba. Their land is continuously expropriated to create illegal settlements and bypass roads, for Jews only, all in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. They are asking to bring to an end this illegal occupation. Surely, it is the legitimate right of all peoples, including, even the Palestinian people, to resist foreign occupation. We have all stood in support of the Europeans’ right to resist the illegal Nazi foreign occupation.

It is time that the American people and their government practice what they preach, and demand complete Israeli withdrawal from all the illegally occupied territories, of the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, since 1967, in compliance with Security Council resolutions. There should be no need for negotiation or bargaining. This is the policy that was adopted against Iraq’s illegal occupation of Kuwait.

How long must Israel remain above international law?

Yours sincerely

Ismail Zayid, MD