From: Ismail Zayid [mailto:izayid@eastlink

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----- Original Message -----

From: Ismail Zayid

To: Halifax Herald

Cc: Bev Dauphinee ; Howse, Bob

Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2008 9:59 AM

Subject: The conext is there: Naked aggression.

Oct. 22, 2008

The Editor,

The Chronicle Herald.

Dear Editor:

Mr. Mark David's charges, [Letter, Oct. 22], are totally baseless. The Israeli forces waged, in May 1948, unprovoked attacks on the Latroun villages, Imwas, Yalu and Beit Nuba [my own hometown]. These villages were well within the proposed Palestinian Arab state proclaimed by the UNGA Patition Resolution #181. These attacks were repulsed by the Jordan army.

On June 5, 1967, Israel waged a naked unprovoked aggression invading and occupying Egyptian Sinai, the West Bank and the Syrian Golan Heights. The Latroun villages were occupied on June 6, without a shot being fired, as confirmed by many Israelis, including the noted journalist and the then reserve soldier, Amos Kenan. The demolition of these villages is in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and thus a war crime, as confirmed in the CBC Fifth Estate documentary: " Park with no Peace", broadcast on Oct. 21,1991. The construction of Canada Park, on the ruins of these villages, using Canadian tax-deductible dollars, by the Jewish National Fund of Canada [JNF], is tantamount to Canadian complicity in this war crime.

The claim by Israel's apologists that the June 1967 was preemptive against a planned attack by President Nasser of Egypt is false as confirmed by the statements by the then Israeli leaders:

Yitzhak Rabin, chief of staff of the Israeli army 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}.

Prime Minister Levi Eshkol stated :" The Egyptian layout in the Sinai and the general military build up there testified to a military defensive Egyptian set-up, south of Israel" [ Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot, Oct. 18,1967].

Modechai Bentov, an Israeli cabinet minister at the time, stated: " All this story about the danger of extermination [of Israel in June 1967] has been a complete invention and has been blown up a posteriori to justify the annexation of Arab territory" [ Al Hamishmar, 14 April 1972, and quoted in Le Monde, 3 June 1972].

Menachem Begin, a cabinet minister in June 1967, stated, while prime minister, addressing Israel's National Defence College, on Aug.8,1982, : " In June 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai did not prove Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with our selves. We decided to attack him" [The N.Y.Times, Aug.21,1982].

It is time that this Israeli illegal occupation of Palestinian and Syrian land, is terminated, having been allowed to stand for 41 years in violation of international law and repeated Security Council resolutions. This , together with Israeli compliance with international law and UN resolutions, is the only way that peace and security can be assured for Israelis and Palestinians in this tortured land.

Yours sincerely,

Ismail Zayid, MD.