To: Harper.S@parl.gc.ca ;
href="/cgi-common/webmail.cgi?cmd=url&xdata=~2-de4326fc8581e34e3e1b9122eb8389abf44d9ef0db00&url=tle=pm!
Sent: Monday, February 20, 2006 3:49 PM
Subject: Israel stands in violation of international law.
Canada Palestine Association,
P.O.Box 1085,
Halifax, NS, B3J 2X1
Feb. 20, 2006
The Right Hon. Mr. Stephen Harper, MP
Prime Minister,
Ottawa.
Dear Mr. Harper:
We read in the press conditions you demand of the
new Palestinian government, which include renouncing violence and recognising
the state of Israel.
We do not need to remind you that Hamas was
elected by the Palestinian people in a free and a democratic election, to speak
for them against corruption and secure freedom for them from an oppressive
brutal illegal occupation. Hamas had already declared and maintained a
ceasefire since last february, while Israel continued to commit its
acts of violence and illegal acts against the Palestinian people. Are
you making the demand on Israel to cease its acts of violence and acts of state
terrorism against the Palestinian people?
The demands on the new Palestinian
government to recognise Israel require clarification; which
Israel is the new Palestinian government required to recognise?
Israel has refused, since its inception, to define its borders, as a
part of its continuing aggressive expansionist ideology, reflected by statements
and actions of its leaders and repeated wars of aggression, in 1956,1967,1978
and 1982, against its neighbours. As well, Israel is persisting in
building its apartheid wall, built on illegally occupied
Palestinian land, and this has been condemned by
the International Court of Justice. Thus one may
ask, which Israel is Hamas being asked to recognise?
Israel's practices, under this illegal occupation,
including extra-judicial assassination, torture, collective punishments, denial
of health care, demolition of thousands of homes and expropriation of property
for the creation of illegal colonies [settlements], are in violation of
virtually every article of the Fourth Geneva Convention. These
violations are defined by international law as war crimes, and
have been condemned by all international human rights bodies, including
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Israeli human
rights groups, including B'Tselem and Israeli League
for Human and Civil Rights.
It is time for Canada and all countries, which
claim to uphold international law and the UN Charter, to call on Israel to
terminate completely and unconditionally its illegal occupation of Palestinian
and Syrian land, that has been allowed to stand, since 1967, for over 38
years, in defiance of international law and repeated Security Council
resolutions.
Yours sincerely,
Ismail Zayid, MD.
President, Canada Palestine
Association.