Sent: Wednesday, March 08, 2006 2:43 PM
Subject: Israel, an Apartheid state.
March 8,@006
The Editor,
The Guardian Weekly.
Dear Editor:
Dominic Simler [Letter : "Israel and Palestine"
March 3} contests the comparison of Israel's policies with those of Apartheid
South Africa. None other than Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who
know Apartheid first hand, testified to the identical treatment that
Palestinians met at the hands of Israeli authorities to that they witnessed in
South Africa.
Professor Israel Shahak who, a Holocaust survivor,
testified :" 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 pf
life, only because of their origin."
The claim by Dominic Simier that :Israel was formed
on land that was bought and paid for from the Arabs", is preposterous. In 1948,
when Israel was created, the Jews of Palestine constituted 31% of the population
and owned exactly 5.6% of the land in Palestine.
It is time that Israel's apologists begin to look
at the real facts of history.
Yours sincerely,
Ismail Zayid, MD