From

The article by Jeff Jacoby :{ "The creed of ' violence pays' is alive and well" Jan. 11,} is laden with bias and disinformation. The killing of innocent civilians, be they Israeli or Palestinians, must be condemned in the strongest terms by all. Mr. Jacoby goes to town in his condemnation of Palestinian acts of violence but not a single word about the atrocities committed by Israeli forces and settlers against Palestinians. Over 2000 Palestinians have been killed and over 40,000 injured, of whom over 30% are children. These 'subhumans' clearly do not deserve a mention in Jacoby's tirade. There is no mention of the oppressive illegal occupation, to which the Palestinians have been subjected, for the last 35 years in defiance of international law and repeated Security Council resolutions. Israeli practices include detention without charge or trial, torture, extra-judicial assassination, demolition of thousands of homes, expropriation of territory for the creation of illegal Jewish settlements and uproting of hundreds of thousands of olive and fruit trees. Collective punishments are imposed, including prolonged curfews, denial of access to medical care and schools. UNICEF reports that 30% of Palestinian children are suffering from malnutrition. All these acts are in violation of all articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and are defined by international law as war crimes. These crimes have been condemned by all international human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Israeli human rights groups like B'Tselem, and the Israeli League for Civil and Human Rights. International observers, like Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Tutu, have described these Israeli policies as an Apartheid system.