To: 'letters@sfchronicle.com'
Subject: Historic Facts

 

 April 2, 2003

 

The Editor,

San Francisco Chronicle

 

Dear Editor,

 

In his article, (“A peacemaker with a nom de guerre?” April 2)  Jeff Jacoby indulges in a lengthy diatribe accusing Palestinians of terrorism and describes the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as “disputed territories”.  International law and repeated security council resolutions recognize that Israel’s occupation of these territories is illegal.  This occupation has been allowed to stand in defiance of international law for over 35 years.  The Palestinian people, under this occupation, have been subjected to violation of their human rights, including torture, extrajudicial assassination, demolition of thousands of their homes, and expropriation of their property for the creation of illegal settlements.  These practices are in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which are tantamount to war crimes. 

 

As to terrorism, it is the state of Israel that has created terrorism in the Middle East.  The late Professor Israel Shahak, a Holocaust survivor, and then Chairman of Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights, stated: " There is nothing new in the fact that  Israel is a terrorist state, which, almost from its inception, has used its intelligence service [the Mossad] to assassinate people on foreign soil with any violence or terror it considers necessary for its ends."

 

Mr. Jacoby states that the territories were “occupied in self-defense in 1967”.  This clearly contradicts the testimony of Israel’s leaders, at the time, who stated: 

 

General Yitzhak Rabin, Israel's Chief of Staff at the time, stated: " I do not think Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to The Sinai would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive war. He knew it and we knew it" {Le Monde, Feb. 28, 1968}.

Mr. Menachem Begin, when he was Prime Minister, addressing Israel's National Defense College, on Aug. 8, 1982, stated :" in June 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in The Sinai did not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him" { The New York Times, Aug. 21, 1982}.

This tells it all, as to who planned and committed this war of aggression in 1967. I believe your readers are entitled and deserve to know the facts.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Ismail Zayid, MD