From: Ismail Zayid
To: beaumc@parl.gc.ca
Cc: Graham.B@parl.gc.ca
Sent: Thursday, May 26, 2005 2:53 PM
Subject: Thank you.

Canada Palestine Association,
P.O.Box 1085,
Halifax, NS, B3J 2X1
 
May 26, 2005
 
Ms. Colleen Beaumier, M.P.
House of Commons,
Ottawa.
 
Dear Ms. Beaumier:
 
Thank you for your forthright and principled letter to Mr. Bill Graham, our Minister of National Defence, in reference to the incredible invitation by our government to the Israeli Air Force to participate in the Maple Leaf Excercise.
 
Our government claims to uphold international law and human rights, yet this invitation is a  legitimization of the oppresive abhorent Israeli policies, which stand in defiance of international law and repeated Security Council resolutions, and have been condemned repeatedly by international and Israeli human rights groups. The Israeli Air Force is regularly committing war crimes in its practices of extra-judicial assassinations and demolition of Palestinian homes and the killing of innocent men, women and children, not to mention its repeated wars of aggression against neighbouring Arab countries.
 
I come from a Palestinian village, Beit Nuba, which was systematically dynamited and bulldozed, together with the neighbouring villages of Imwas [Emmaus] and Yalu, by the Israeli army, in June 1967. At the site of these villages stands today, to our shame as Canadians, the infamy called  "Canada Park", built by the Canadian Jewish National Fund[JNF], with Canadian tax-deductible dollars. Despite repeated protests, our government continues to allow our dollars to participate in this war crime.
 
Thank you again for your integrity and courage.
 
Yours sincerely,
 
Ismail Zayid, M.D.
President, Canada Palestine Association.
http://izayid.tripod.com