American Arab Anti Discrimination Committee

Dayton Daily News
September 4, 2001
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Someone really needs to hand Michael Kelly a copy of the 4th Geneva Convention. On top of endorsing the campaign of murder by Israeli death squads, Kelly repeats his odious call for war crimes from two weeks ago, urging Israel to 'destroy, kill, capture and expel the armed Palestinian forces.' ('Is Israel exercising restraint,' Aug. 30.) Any expulsion of Palestinians, armed or not, is a war crime under the Geneva Convention.

Moreover, Kelly's implication that all of the 40,000 Palestinian police, as well as other armed Palestinians who might resist the Israeli assault he craves, should be expelled probably rises to the scale of a crime against humanity.

Of course, Kelly continues to ignore the convention, because he refuses to recognize the fact of the occupation. It is this fundamental lie, treating events which occur in the context of a 35-year military occupation as if there were no occupation at all, that allows him to cast Israel as being engaged in 'a defensive war' when its army is on a rampage outside the borders of Israel for the sole purpose of denying another people their freedom.

Hussein Ibish
Washington, D.C.
Mr. Ibish is communications director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Washington, D.C.

	5 September 2001
	DC Letter in Dayton Daily News on Michael Kelly's Latest Column

	Dayton Daily News September 4, 2001 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Someone really needs to hand Michael Kelly a copy of the 4th Geneva Convention. On top of endorsing the campaign of murder by Israeli death squads, Kelly repeats his odious call for war crimes from two weeks ago, urging Israel to 'destroy, kill, capture and expel the armed Palestinian forces.' ('Is Israel exercising restraint,' Aug. 30.) Any expulsion of Palestinians, armed or not, is a war crime under the Geneva Convention. Moreover, Kelly's implication that all of the 40,000 Palestinian police, as well as other armed Palestinians who might resist the Israeli assault he craves, should be expelled probably rises to the scale of a crime against humanity. Of course, Kelly continues to ignore the convention, because he refuses to recognize the fact of the occupation. It is this fundamental lie, treating events which occur in the context of a 35-year military occupation as if there were no occupation at all, that allows him to cast Israel as being engaged in 'a defensive war' when its army is on a rampage outside the borders of Israel for the sole purpose of denying another people their freedom. Hussein Ibish Washington, D.C. Mr. Ibish is communications director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Washington, D.C.