From: Ismail Zayid

To: Halifax Herald

Cc: Dauphinee, Bev

Sent: Sunday, February 26, 2006 12:00 PM

Subject: Unparalleled sophistry.

 

Feb. 26, 2006.

 

The Editor,

The Halifax Herald.

 

Dear Editor;

 

A. Mark David ["Speaking of sophistry" Feb. 26 letter], in accusing Fazal Ur Rahman of sophistry, displays unparalleled sophistry of his own, in his finding excuses and  justification for Israeli state terrorism and brutal occupation. Israeli practices, throughout its over 38 years of illegal occupation of Palestinian territory, are a manifest example of state terrorism and in violation of virtually every article of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and are thus defined by international law as war crimes. These practises have been condemned by all international human rights' bodies, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem.

 

The late professor Israel Shahak, a Holocaust survivor, and then chairman of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights, wrote: "There is nothing new in the fact that Israel is a terrorist state, which, almost from its inception, has used its intelligence service (the Mossad) to assassinate people on foreign soil with any violence or terror it considers necessary for its ends."

 

The acts of suicide bombing, by Palestinians, killing innocent Israeli civilians are abhorent but they are miniscule compared to the massive continuing killing of innocent Palestinians committed by Israeli bombing of refugee camps, using F16's and Apaches. The late Canadian historian Frank Epp, then president of Grebel college of the University of Waterloo, wrote: "It is true that terrorist acts have been perpetrated by people identified as Palestinians. But there is another terrorism which is more vicious and brutal, that of dispossession and displacement forced upon the Palestinians. However, terrorism meted out by the Palestinians, regrettable as it is, is minute by comparison with that which has been inflicted on them. The mass media have failed to make this point adequately."

 

It is time that Israel's apologists begin to see Israeli crimes, committed against the Palestinian people, for what they are.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Ismail Zayid, MD.