July 12, 2000
Why
assume innocence?
By Ismail Zayid, Halifax
STATEMENTS by Ed Morgan of
the Canadian
Jewish Congress (Where Love For
Israel Is A Crime -- July 10), Leo
Adler of the Simon
Wiesenthal Centre (letter -- July
6) and others make interesting
reading.
I do not have any substantive
evidence to judge how fair or otherwise
was the recent trial of 10 Iranian
Jews. However, I doubt if your other
correspondents do, either. Mr. Morgan
states that the Jews were tried for
"love of Israel," as if Israeli agents
would never engage in spying. We do not
have to look very far from our borders
to see the evidence. Jonathan
Pollard, an American Jew, is still
serving a sentence for spying for
Israel against his own country.
[see
below] This week, an Israeli
agent has been convicted for spying in
Switzerland, and there have been many
others.
What astonishes me is that all those
calling this trial flawed are speaking
of violations of human rights and
proper legal process. Yet, I do not
recall hearing any of them raising a
whisper about the thousands of
Palestinians who have been held for
years and tortured in Israeli prisons
in "administrative detention," without
trial or charge. Nor do I recall any
expressions of concern about the
thousands of Palestinian prisoners
sentenced in Israeli military courts to
lengthy imprisonment on the basis of
confessions obtained under torture and
written in Hebrew, a language the
prisoners do not know.
The question that continues to
puzzle us is why, in the eyes of our
government and Washington, Israel
remains above international law and has
this unique immunity from criticism,
unlike the other nations of the
world.
Ismail Zayid MD, is
president of the Canada Palestine
Association
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