From: Ismail Zayid
To: Globe & Mail

Sent: Friday, January 05, 2001 3:53 PM

Subject: Contortions and Misinformation

Canada Palestine Association
P.O.Box 1085
Halifax, NS, B3J 2X1
Tel:902 429 9100

The Editor:
The Globe & Mail

Jan. 5, 2001

Dear Editor:

The article by Amos Oz {:"Let’s face demographic reality in the Mideast", Jan.5} is laden with contortions and misinformation. He states that "Israel is currently offering the Palestinians a peace agreement based on the 1967 borders with minor mutual amendments". This is not true. The areas Israel is proposing to annex around Jerusalem, parts of East Jerusalem and significant areas, where settlements have been created, are not minor and certainly not mutually agreed or desired. They are imposed by Israel. They will bring about a fragmented Palestinian state with no contiguity. The complete withdrawal of Israel from territories illegally occupied in 1967 is an international law requirement and in compliance with Security Council Resolutions, that requires no imposed amendments. This complete withdrawal will give the Palestinians a state on only 22% of historic Palestine,

He accepts Israeli withdrawal from "dozens of small settlements thrust into the midst of Palestinian territory". If so, why not the large settlements that fragment the Palestinian state and deprive it of any possible viability. ALL settlements are illegal and in violation of Security Council resolutions and The Fourth Geneva Convention.

He is opposed to the "Right of Return" of the Palestinian refugees to their homes and the land they legally own, a right that is enshrined in the repeatedly reaffirmed UN resolution #194, and The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He argues that this right will impinge on the purity of the Jewish state of Israel. This, incidentally, is a strange argument for a state that claims to be a democracy, yet it is the only state in the world that requires this purity and defines itself as a state of all the Jewish people in the world but not of its own citizens. Mr. Oz states that the Palestinians are "ignoring the fate of hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jews who fled and were driven out of their homes in Arab countries". These Jews have a perfect right to return to their homes in Arab countries and many of the Arab countries have expressed their willingness to welcome their return. He omits to state that many of the Jewish immigrants to Israel from Arab countries were not driven out by the Arab countries but were intimidated by deliberate acts of terrorism by Zionist and Israeli leaders. One example is that of Mordechai Ben Porat, an Iraqi-born Israeli, who was charged by the Israeli writer Baruch Nadel of having tossed hand grenades in the crowded Masauda Shem-Tov synagogue in Iraq, to force reluctant Iraqi Jews to migrate to Israel, as part of the Israeli campaign in the fifties to gather more immigrants.

Finally, if there is to be peace in this tormented land, there has to be a modicum of justice for the Palestinians; for without justice, there will be no peace for Arab or Jew in the Middle East.

Yours sincerely

Ismail Zayid,MD.
President, Canada Palestine Association.