To: Bob Howse ; Laurent Le Pierres ; Dauphinee, Bev

Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2006 11:30 AM

Subject: "Through a Palestinian's eyes.'

April 25,2006

The Editor,

The Halifax Herald.

" Through a Palestinian's eyes"

Paul Schneidereit, in his lengthy outrageous diatribe, {"Through an Israeli's eyes" April 25}, is re-writing the history of the Palestine/Israel conflict.

He speaks of some Arab leaders talking about looming massacres. The massacres that were looming and actually took place were committed by the Zionist terrorist gangs and Israeli forces, including, amongst many others, the massacres of Deir Yassin, on April 9,1948, Duweima, Safsaf and Tantura. The Jewish history researcher, Ariyeh Yitzhaki, speaks of at least 20 large massacres of Arabs and about hundreds more massacres committed by Israeli forces. Yitzhaki states:

" For many Israelis it was easy to cling to the false claim that the Arabs left the country because that was what their leaders ordered. That is a total lie. The fundamental cause for the flight of the Arabs was their fear of Israelis' violence, and that fear had a basis in reality."

The Israeli history researcher, Uri Milstein, celebrated in Israel as the dispeller of myths cofirms Yitzhaki's evaluation regarding the volume of the massacres and even goes further: " If Yitzhaki claims that there were murders in almost every village, then I say that, up to the inception of Israel, every event of fighting ended in a massacre of Arabs. There were massacres of Arabs in all of Israel's wars, but I have no doubt that the War of Independence [1948] was the dirtiest." The massacres by Israel did not stop in the subsequent years, including the Kafr Qassim massacre, in Israel, in 1956, and the Qana massacre in South Lebanon in 1996 and the massacre of Sabra and Shatilla, orchesrated in Beirut by Ariel Sharon, in 1982.

Schneidereit speaks of Arab armies invading Israel. He omits the fact that before the British forces left Palestine and before a single Arab army soldier entered, on May 15, 1948, the Jewish forces, besides the massacres committed, expelled 350,000 Palestinian refugees and occupied many cities and towns, apportioned for the Arab state, in the UN Partition Resolution # 181, of Nov. 29, 1947, including cities like Jaffa and Acre. The expulsion and occupation were part of the Plan Dalet, formulated in Aptil 1948, by the official Haganah group, led by Ben Gurion, to occupy all of Palestine. It is relevant to observe here that the UN Partition reolution was unjust. The palestinian Jews at the time constituted 31% of the population, many of them recent or illegal immigrants, and owned 5.6% of the land of Palestine, and yet were apportioned 56% of the country. This resolution was forced through the UN General Assembly by the US, as confirmed by the US Under-secretary of State, Sumner Welles, who stated: " By direct order of the White House, every form of pressure, direct and indirect, was used to make sure that the necessary majority would be obtained." Yet Israel's leaders were not content with this. Menachem Begin, the leader of the Herut party stated:" The partition of the Homeland is illegal. It will never be recognised." The 1948 fighting resulted in Israel occupying 78% of Palestine and expelled over 750,000 Palestinians from their homes, in accordanse with the Zionist program, formulated by Theodor Herzl and his followers. Herzl stated in his diaries in 1896 and before the First World Zionist Congress, in 1897 in Basle, Switzerland stated : " We shall try to spirit the penniless [Arab] population across the border..The process.... must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly." Ben Gurion confided, in a letter to his son, Amos, in 1937, that when the Jewish state comes into being " We will expel the Arabs and take their places." To effect that and the refusal to allow the Palstinian refugees to return to their homes, Israel proceeded to depopulate and demolish completely 531 Palestinian villages in the territories it conquered in 1948.

Schneiderereit alleges that the Arab countries expelled their Jewish citizens. This is a falsehood. The Jewish refugees to Israel from Arab countries came as a direct or indirect pressure by Israel to increase its Jewish population. A classical example was the program formulated by Mordechai ben Porat, an Israeli politician, in 1950/1951, where Israeli agents were used to toss hand grenades in the Massauda Shem Tov synagogue in Iraq, killing and injuring a number on innocent Jewish worshippers, to blame it on the Arabs. The process was acclaimed, with pride, as a success in bringing Jewish Iraqis to Israel. However, since then a number of Arab countries has stated that they would honour the right of return for their Jewish citizens. As to the Palestinian refugees, Israel continues to deny them their right of return, in defiance of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and repeated UN resolutions. In 1948 the UN Mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte, a Swedish nobleman renowned for his humanitarian work in saving Jews in sweden from Nazi crimes, stated : " It would an offense against the principles of elemental justice if these innocent victims of the conflict were denied the right to return to their homes, while Jewish immigrants flow into Palestine...". Count Bernadotte paid heavily for making this principled statement. He was assassinated, on sept. 17, 1948 in Jeusalem, by the Stern gang, on the direct orders of Yitzhak shamir, later the prime minister of Israel. However, the UN General Assembly proceeded to resolve on Dec. 11, 1948, in its Resolution # 194:

" Refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so, at the earliest practicable date, and those wishing not to return should be compensated for their property." This resolution has been reaffirmed repeatedly, but this "earliest practicable date" remains unfulfilled 58 years later. Interestingly, the implementation of this resolution as well as the UN Partition Resolution # 181 were conditions placed on the admittance of Israel to the UN, in Resolution # 273, of May 11,1949. Neither of these resolutions has been implemented. Thus it can be legitimately argued that Israel's membership in the UN is illegitimate.

Israel's wars of aggression and expansion continued in 1956, 1967, 1978 and 1982, against Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Lebanon. The illegal occupation, in 1967, of Palestinan and Syrian territories still stands 39 years later, in defiance of repeated UN and Security Council resolutions. During this occupation the Israeli forces, in June 1967, proceeded to demolish completely the villages of Imwas [Emmaus], Yalu and Beit Nuba [my own hometown], and expel their 14,000 population, on the direct orders of Yitzhak Rabin. To compound this tragedy, today stands, at the site of these villages, the infamy called Canada Park, a war crime built, through the Canadian Jewish National Fund[JNF], with Canadian tax-deductible dollars. Furthermore, throughout this illegal occupation, Israel has been committing practices, that stand in violation of virtually every article of the Fourth Geneva Convention. These practices are defined by inenational law as war crimes and include extra-judicial assassination, detention without charge or trial, torture, demolition of thousands of homes, daily humiliation, denial of medical care and expropriation of territory for the creation of illegal Jewish colonies [settlements].

Mr. Schneidereit spaeks of Hamas as a terrorist organisation and clls on it to renounce violence and recognise the state of Israel. Hamas has declared a ceasefire since Februay last year and has adhered to this strictly. Israel, on the other han, continues its acts of violence by bombing, murder, assassination and demolition of homes. As to the recognition of the state of Israel, one may ask ,which state of Israel is the current palestinian government required to recognise. The state of Israel has refused since its inception to define its borders. It remains the only state in the world to define its borders. Ben Gurion, its first prime minister stated in his diaries in 1954, after Israel had conquered 78% of historic Palestine, : " To maintain the status quo will not do. we have built a dynamic state bent upon expansion." And expansion is proceeding. The current Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, stated few days ago that Israel is planning new borders which will include the annexation of current large jewish settlements in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley, in essence nearly 50% of the West Bank. Is that what Hamas is required to recognise?!

A permanent peaceful resolution of this conflict is essential and has to be based on a modicum of justice. Israel must terminate completely its illegal occuption of Palestinian and Syrian land and comply with UN resolutions. Thus can peace be secured for Israelis and Palestinians in this tortured land