From: Ismail Zayid

To: Graham.B@parl.gc.ca

Sent: Sunday, August 27, 2006 10:26 PM

Subject: The Liberal Party and Israel.

Canada Palestine Association,

P.O.Box, 1085,

Halifax, NS, B3J 2X1

Aug. 27, 2006

The Honouarable Mr. Bill Graham,

Inerim Leader of the Liberal Party.

Dear Mr. Graham:

We are astonished to read your reported statement, at the recent Liberal Caucus, in relation to Israel and the recent attacks on Gaza and Lebanon. We are told, that you state: " We are totally united in our support for the state of Israel as a democratically elected state in an area faced with challenges to it by Hezbollah and Hamas, which we ourselves listed as terrorist groups."

The democracy that you ascribe to Israel is a charade best described by the noted Israeli author and journalist, Maxim Ghilan, who stated; " Israel is a democrcy for Jews only, like [Apartheid] South Africa is a democracy for Whites only." The state of Israel practices blatant legislated racism and discrimination against its own Muslim and Christian citizens. These practices have been condemned by all international human rights bodies, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and Israeli human rights groups such as B’Tselem.

The catalogue of these practices is lengthy, but the late Professor Israel Shahak, a Holocaust survivor and chairman of the Israeli League for Human and Civil  Rights, summed it up accurately in his statement: "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 of life, only because of their origin. This racist discrimination began in Zionism and is carried today mainly in co-operation with the institutions of the Zionist movement." (Quote taken from The Racist Nature of Zionism and of the Zionist State of Israel, an article published in Pi-Ha’aton, the weekly newspaper of the students of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Nov. 5, 1975.)

Derek Tozer, an Israeli thinker, stated: "The official policy of the government (of Israel) is unequivocal. Arabs, like the Jews in Nazi Germany, are officially ‘class B’ citizens, a fact which is recorded on their identity cards."

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, during a Christmas visit to Jerusalem in 1989, stated: "I am a black South African and if I were to change names, a description of what is happening in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank could describe events in South Africa."

The predicament of Israel’s roughly 1.2 million Arab citizens is evident, as the 2003 Israeli State Committee of Inquiry made clear: "They suffer systemic discrimination in employment, housing and education, and lack of equal access to state resources."

Israel’s new Citizenship Law, passed recently by a wide margin in the Knesset, denies any Arab Israeli citizen the right to reside in Israel with his/her spouse if they marry a Palestinian. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have condemned the law as racist, and Israel-based B’Tselem Human rights group, claims that it contravenes the Israeli Basic Law.

It is clear that Israeli practices and laws stand in violation of international law and the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Article 1 of the Convention calls on all High Contracting parties, including Canada, to take action against any state that violates any article of the Convention. Yet you are now telling us that the Canadian Liberal party stands today in total support for Israel.

Your statement refers to Hezbollah and Hamas as terrorist groups. These groups are waging resistance against illegal Israeli foreign occupation of their land that has been allowed to stand for 39 years, in defiance of international law and repeated Security Council resolutions. International law entitles all peoples, including even the Palestinian and leanese peoples, under foreign occupation the right to resist foreign occupation.

As to terrorism, it was Israel and the Zionist groups, that preceeded its creation, that created terrorism in the Middle East against the Arabs, the British, Europeans and even Jews. Israeli catalogue of terrorism is lengthy, and I will send you, separately, a brief copy of it. However, the testimony by the Late Professor Israel Shahak illustrates this accurately:  "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."

I think it behooves our political leaders, speaking for our country which prides itself on upholdng the UN Charter and iternatioal law, to take note of the historic facts and call on Israel to uphold the UN Charter and comply with international law and UN resolutions, scores of which Israel continues to defy for decades.

Yours sincerely,

Ismail Zayid, MD

President, Canada Palestine Association.