From: Center for Policy Research Subject: H.R. violations by Israel/Arab st. Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1483500360:000:2383 Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!cpr Apr 24 16:07:00 1993 Lines: 48 Many of you ask me whether I approve of severe human rights violations by Arab States becuse I focus on Israeli human rights violations. Let's make things clear: My opposition to H.R. violations in Arab States is total and without qualification. No Arab State is and can claim to be democratic. No Arab state claims to be democratic. I am born in Palestine (now Israel). I have family there. The lack of peace and utter injustice in my home country has affected me all my life. I am concerned by Palestine (Israel) because I want peace to come to it. Peace AND justice. If anybody has legitimate claims towards Arab states, he should present his claims and ask for support. Jews who left Arab states are fully entitled to make claims and should do so, if they consider their case has a merit. It is their basic right to return to these countries, if they wish. If not, they should not complain and compare themselves to the Palestinians who have been struggling for the right of return since Israel was established and whose right is upheld by the United Nations quasi totally. If Jews feel discriminated in Arab countries, they have a legitimate claim that any decent person can and should support. Human rights violations by Arab States don't justify, legitimate nor are the cause for Israeli breaches of international law and human rioghts. Israeli breaches stem from the Zionist concept, which can only be implemented by negating basic rights to Palestinians. Israeli trights and Palestinian rights are not symmetrical. The first party has a state and the other has none. The first is an occupier and the second the occupied. For any meaningful relationship to emerge, some symmetry must be established. As long as Israelis and Jews don't realise the necessity of a change of perspective towards the Palestinian people and as long as Israelis and Jews don't want to exorcise their own past towards the Palestinians (the Naqba of 1948, etc.) and refuse to acknowledge that the creation of Israel was dependent upon the removal of most Palestinian Arabs, there will be no base for a real trust. When I read the first time the list of the 383 Arab villages destroyed by the State of Israel in and after 1948, I got a shock. I hope others will be touched by this discovery and think about the meaning of such massive destruction and destitution. Elias Davidsson Iceland