From: Ismail Zayid

To: Guardian Weekly

Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2000 5:23 PM

Subject: Riots in the Occupied Territories

 

The Editor,
The Guardian Weekly
London

12 October, 2000

Dear Editor:

Suzanne Goldenberg's article (Annan Struggles to Stall War, Oct. 12) quotes Mr. Kofi Annan stating: "I have not come up with any magic formula or solution." Pray, why not? Surely, the U.N. Secretary General should have come with the clear message that Israel must comply with Security Council resolutions, which remain unimplemented for 33 years, calling for Israeli withdrawal from illegally occupied territories including the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. Surely, Mr. Annan should call for Israeli compliance with the Fourth Geneva Convention and cease the killing of civilians, mostly children, and the expropriation of Palestinian property and the demolition of their homes.

Mr. Barak is using his helicopter gunships and tanks to bomb Palestinian police stations and other sites for the senseless killing of two Israeli soldiers, in Ramallah today. Why is the killing of a hundred Palestinians, mostly children, perfectly acceptable?

Incidentally, Ms. Goldenberg reports on the brutal beating of Mr. H. Liebermann, the cousin of the U.S. vice-presidential candidate. Mr. H. Liebermann is from the Elon Moreh settlement, illegally built on the ruins of my own hometown, the village of Beit Nuba, totally demolished, together with the village of Imwas and Yalu, in June 1967, a war crime carried out on the orders of none other than the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Mr. Yitzhak Rabin.

 

Yours sincerely,

Ismail Zayid, M.D.