How does Mr. Caplan expect Israel to recognize thegenocide of the Armenians and Rawandans when it barely recognizes the genocide of theRoma Gypsies suffered simultaneously with the Jewsduring the Nazi era? While Mr. Caplan brought outsome very excellent points during his address to the Toronto Armenian Community,it was a grave oversight on his part to have completely omitted the Roma Gypsy genocide whose numbers may have totalled anywhere from 800,000 to 1.5 million. They too were targeted for who they wereand not for anything they did yet there has been hardly any recognition given to them for the past sixty years.

According to the Genocide Convention, deliberately inflicting conditions of life upon any group calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in partfalls into the category of genocide.This canbe associated withthe collective and brutal treatment of the Palestinian population as an entire group who are targeted for who they are and not for anything they have done while Israel continuously uses its security defense as a justification for destruction.

While it is always difficult to believe that anyone can descend to such barbaric depths, it is even harder to comprehend how many people support this, or simply turn away with complete indifference.It is also appalling to think that those who suffered such atrocities in the past which originated from sheer racism could be inflicting the same on others by applying racist laws and policies targeted at a specific group.