From: Ismail Zayid

To: Carl Rosenberg

Sent: Saturday, June 21, 2008 9:07 AM

Subject: The facts speak for themselves.

June 21, 2008.

The Editor,

Outlook.

Dear Editor:

Ralph Seliger, in his letter critical of my article :" The Palestinian Nakba: 60 Years and More to Come", makes incredible statements that comtradict historic facts. Every statement in my article is accurate and documented in historic record.

He states: " The Palestinian refugee problem is a direct result of this decision [ the Arab rejection of the UN partition plan of 1947]." This is contrary to the longstanding Zionist plan first formulated by Theodor Herzl in in 1897, at the First World Zionist Congress, in Basle, articlated in his statement: " We shall try to spirit the penniless [Arab] population across the border....Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly." This plan of the expulsion of the Palestinians from their ancestral homeland was reaffirmed by all future Zionist leaders, including David Ben Gurion, Joseph Weitz and others, whose statements I quoted in my article. These Zionist designs were formulated long before the Arab rejection of the 1947 UN partition plan.

The Arabs rejected the 1947 UN partition plan because it was so unjust. The Jews in Palestine in 1947, with many recent and illegal immigrants, constituted 31% of the population and owned 5.6% of its land. Yet the UN partition resolution # 181, of Nov. 29, 1947, apportined 56% of the land in Palestine for a Jewish state, 42% for the Arabs and 2% for an international zone in Jerusalem. Furthermore, it was not only the Arabs who opposed the partition plan. Some of the Zionist leaders accepted it as a tactical measure while others rejected it. Meachem Begin, the leader of the Herut party, at the time, stated: " The partition of the homeland is illegal. It will never be recognized." David ben Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, when announcing the creation of israel, on May 14, 1948, refused to define its borders. Israel is the only state in the world that has no defined border. He later stated in his diaries {edited by Michael Bar-Zohar, and published in 1954} : " To maintain the status quo will not do. We have set up a dynamic state bent upon expansion."

Mr. Seliger speaks of the Israeli "defensive war". Over 300,000 Palestinian refugees were expelled or fled the terror and massacres that they were subjected to before a single Arab army soldier entered Palestine, on May 15, 1948. To equate the Zionist actions and massacres with the acts of violence by Palestinians resisting these attacks is ridiculous. The Jews lived in Palestine peacefully until the Zionist program and the Balfour Declaration came about. Many Palestinian Jews rejected these plans. Chaim Weizman, Israel's first president stated in 1946, before the Anglo-American Commission of Enqiury, in Jerusalem: " I would not like to do any injustice. The Muslim World has treated the Jews with considerable tolerance. The Ottoman Empire [Of which the Arabs were a large part] received the Jews with open arms when they were driven out of Spain and Europe, and the Jews should never forget that." Unfortunately, many Jews, today, have not taken Weizman's advice and forgot that. 

Finally, the call on all those who care to ensure peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians, is to demand that Israel must comply with international law and support the call for justice for all in this tortured land.

Yours sincerely,

Ismail Zayid, MD.