From: Ismail Zayid

To: letters@thestar.ca

Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 3:52 PM

Subject: Democracy, Israeli style.

Canada Palestine Association,

P.O.Box, 1085,

Halifax, NS. B3J 2X1

Jan. 31, 2007

The Editor,

The Toronto Star.

Dear Editor

Frank Dimant, in his letter,{"1 million Arabs call Israel homes" Jan. 30}, states:" Israel is a vibrant, democratic society founded on the principles of tolerance and respect for all of its citizens." Sadly, however, the facts, on the ground, are contrary to that, as confirmed by international and Israeli thinkers and authorities, who confirm that Israel practices racism, apartheid-style, against Palestinians in the illegally-occupied territories, as well as its own Arab, Muslim and Christian, citizens:

"I've been very distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us blacks in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about...The current divestment effort is the first, though certainly not the only, necessary move in that direction. {Archbishop Desmond Tutu, The Guardian, April 29, 2002}

On, [Nov. 29, 2006], the Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran the following op-ed, by John Dugard, a South African former anti-apartheid leader.  He is currently the Special Rapporteur on Palestine to the United Nations Human Rights Council.  He not only compares Israeli policies to apartheid, but says that in many ways Israeli policies are worse than South African apartheid was. http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2006/11/29/1129edcarter.html

The noted Israeli author, Maxime Ghilan, stated in an editorial in the Feb. 1983 issue of the Paris-based magazine, Israel and Palestine, : "Israel is a Western-type democracy for Jews only......Arabs, who are citizens of the state of Israel are less fortunate...They are not granted equal economic priviliges, are prevented from access to public housing and loans... Israeli Arab workers are economically discriminated against, receiving lower pay than their Jewish counterparts.....Arabs in the territories, conquered by Israel since 1967, have no rights whatsoever. Their children are shot. beaten up, jailed; their young men assassinated. Their women are brutalised. Their cars are wantonly destroyed by hammer and bomb. Their elected mayors and leaders are deposed......Their politicians are often deported. Foreign settlers jeer at them, provoke them, squat in their homes and on their lands. International law, concerning the behaviour of conquerors in conquered land, is opely flouted."

The late Professor Israel Shahak, a Holocaust survivor and chairman of the Israeli League for Human and Civil  Rights, summed it up accurately in his statement: "It is my considered opinion that the state of Israel is a racist state in the full meaning of this term. In this state, people are discriminated against, in the most permanent and legal way and in the most important areas of life, only because of their origin. This racist discrimination began in Zionism and is carried today mainly in co-operation with the institutions of the Zionist movement." (Quote taken from "The Racist Nature of Zionism and of the Zionist State of Israel", an article published in Pi-Ha’aton, the weekly newspaper of the students of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Nov. 5, 1975.)

Derek Tozer, an Israeli thinker, stated: "The official policy of the government (of Israel) is unequivocal. Arabs, like the Jews in Nazi Germany, are officially ‘class B’ citizens, a fact which is recorded on their identity cards."

The predicament of Israel’s roughly 1.2 million Arab citizens is evident, as the 2003 Israeli State Committee of Inquiry made clear: "They suffer systemic discrimination in employment, housing and education, and lack of equal access to state resources."

Israel’s "Nationality and Entering to Israel Law", passed by the cabinet in 2002, and reaffirmed annually by the Knesset, and recently, May 2006, reaffirmed by a wide margin in the Knesset, denies any Arab Israeli citizen the right to reside in Israel with his/her spouse if they marry a Palestinian. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have condemned the law as racist, and Israel-based B’Tselem human rights group, claims that it contravenes the Israeli Basic Law.

This is the true nature of Israeli democracy, as practiced against its own Arab citizens and Palestinians under occupation.

Yours sincerely,

Ismail Zayid, MD.