We find your letter to The National Post, June 5,2006, extremely surprisimg, especially coming from a member of a party, the NDP, which claims to support social democracy, universal human rights and international law. In your letter you are critical of Ontario CUPE resolution calling for trade sanctions against Israel, for its racism and violation of the human rights of Palestinians under its illegal occupation. You state : "Israel is a modern and progressive multi-party democracy with a free and independent trade union movement, freedom of speech and religion, and a profound and frequently tested commitment to human rights."

This statement is lacking in veracity and is contradicted by the facts on the ground. Israeli practices in the occupied Palestinian territories, including extra-judicial assassination, detention without charge or trial, torture, daily humiliation, denial of health care, demolition of thousands of homes and expropriation of territory for the creation of illegal Jewish colonies [settlements], stand in violation of virtually every article of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and are thus defined by international law as war crimes. These violations have been condemned by all international human rights bodies, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Israeli human rights groups, including B'Tselem.

Article One of the Fourth Geneva Convention calls on all High Contracting Parties, including Canada, to take action against any state that violates any of the articles of the Convention. Thus, for an elected Canadian member of parliament to stand in support of a state with such a record, is simply incredible.

Israeli racist practices are not restricted to the Palestinians under its brutal and oppressive occupation but extend to Muslim and Christian Arab citizens of Israel. These racist practices are many and varied and are embedded in Israeli laws. The recent law denying its Arab citizens to be able to live with their spouses in their homes, if they marry Palestinians from the Occupied Territories or abroad, is a clear example of legislated racism.

The late Professor Israel Shahak, a Holocaust survivor and Chairperson of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights, sums 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 cooperation with the institutions of the Zionist movement." {"The Racist Nature of Zionism and of the Zionist State of Israel", 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."

It is time, Mr. Martin, that our politicians act in accordance with what they preach and cease this practice od double standards. Israel must be made to comply with international law , cease its racist practices against its own non-Jewish citizens and terminate its illegal occupation of Palestinian and Syrian land, that has been allowed to stand for 39 years, in defiance of international law and repeated security council resolutions.