From: Ismail Zayid

To: Halifax Herald

Cc: Dauphinee, Bev

Sent: Saturday, May 27, 2006 8:56 PM

Subject: Double standards.

Canada Palestine Association,

P.O.Box, 1085,

Halifax, NS, B3J 2X1

May 27,2006

The Editor,

The Chronicle Herald.

Dear Editor:

Your editorial: {" Abbas's gambit" May 27}, asks Hamas and the newly-elected palestinian government to recognise the state of Israel. Will your editor, kindly, tell us which state of Israel is Hamas and the new palestinian government required to recognise? Israel, since its inception, has refused to define its borders. Israel's first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, stated in 1954 in his diaries after Israel had already conquered 78% of historic Palestine: " The status Quo will not do. We have created a dynamic state, bent upon expansion." Accordingly, Israel proceeded in a series of wars of aggression against its neihgbours, Egypt, Syria, Palestine and Lebanon, in 1956, 1967, 1978 and 1982, to plan and work for this expansionist program. Israel's current prime minister, Ehud Olmert, has declared recently that he plans to annex the major illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank, as well as East Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley, leaving a few small non-contiguous bantustans for a so-called Palestinian state. Be that as it may, this call for recognition is a pretext used to continue the oppression of the Palestinian people. The P.L.O. has for decades and repeatedly expressed recognition of Israel, but where did that get the so-called peace process and the basic requirement for Israel to comply with international law?

Your editor states: " The world community is right to refuse to deal with a government that cannot agree to basic international rules, such as renouncing terrorism." This makes one wonder why is Israel deemed to be above international law and rules. Israel has been since its inception creating and practicing state terrorism in the Middle East and through out the world, against not only Palestinians but British  and US diplomatic persons and institutions as well as innocent Jewish refugees and worshippers { See " Israeli terrorism", The Halifax Herald. Nov. 4,2001.} Israeli brutal practices in the Occupied Territories are in violation of virtually every article of the Fourth Geneva Convention, including extra-judicial assassination, torture, daily humiliation, denial of health care, demolition of thousands of homes and exoropriation of property for the creation of illegal colonies [settlements]. These violations are defined by international law as war crimes, and have been condemned by all international human rights bodies, incuding UN Human Rights Commission, Amnesty International, Human rights Watch and Israeli human rights groups, including B'Tselem.

You refer to the total breakdown of Palestinian society, as a result of denial of food health care resulting from the policies of Israel and the US and its allies, including Canada. Israel, the occupying power, is required by international law and the Fourth Geneva convention to ensure the well-being of the people under occupation, and the failure to do that is identified as a war crime.

It is vital to remind your readers that Israel is maintaining an illegal occupation of Palstinian and Syrian land for 39 years, in defiance of international law and repeated Security Council and UNGA resolutions. Surely, your call should be for complete, unconditional and immediate termination of this illegal occupation and compliance with UN resolutions so that the oppressed Palestinian people are allowed the restoration of their basic human rights.

Your sincerely,

Ismail Zayid, MD.

President, Canada Palestine Association.