From: Ismail Zayid

To: Chester Clipper

Sent: Monday, August 28, 2006 5:27 PM

Subject: Israel defiance of international law.

19 Bucaneer Road,

East Chester, NS.

B0J 1J0

Tel: 275 4898

The Editor,

The Chester Clipper.

Dear Editor:

Mr. Warren Laws, in his letter{"Measuring all responses to crisis" Aug. 22}, rightly states that "Israel's response to Hezbollah's provocations has been ..... disproportionate. And yes, our government's unqualified support of Israel's "self defense" is misguided". Yet, he contests your calling Israel the aggressor. However, as Gwynne Dyer shows, in his opinion column in the same page, that the military action that brought about the capture of the two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah was the outcome of a deliberate provocation planned long ahead by Israel and the Bush administration, to bring about this attack on Lebanon. The noted journalist, Seymour Hersh, reported: "According to a Middle East expert with knowledge of the current thinking of both the Israeli and the U.S. governments, Israel had devised a plan for attacking Hezbollah - and shared it with Bush Administration officials - well before the July 12th. kidnappings."{ The New Yorker, Aug. 21, 2006.} 

That is not to forget that Israel has kidnapped over 9,000 Palestinians and Lebanese, who have been held for decades, mostly without charge or trial in what Israel calls 'Administrative Detention'. And that is not to mention that Israel is in illegal occupation of Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese territory for 39 years, in defiance of international law and repeated Security Council resolutions, making Lebanese military action, against a foreign occupier, legitimate.

Amnesty International has declared that the Israeli attacks on Lebanon are war crimes.

Israel was in violation of Security Council Ceasefire Resolution # 1701 within days of its enactment, by landing troops in the Beqaa valley in Lebanon. Israel's history of contiuing violation of scores of UN resolutions and the Fourth Geneva Convention, is longstanding.

Israel must not be allowed to remain above international law.

Yours sincerely,

Ismail Zayid, MD.