The Jews themselves migrated throughout the Middle East with evidence of Jewish settlements being found in Yemen and Saudi Arabia and in fact the Jewish community in Yathrib (Medina today) supported the Prophet Mohamed during his Hijra.

Migration amongst the various tribes was common and to say any piece of land belonged to any one people is very inaccurate and misleading. It would be similar to saying that Britain belongs to the Angles, Celts, or Normans exclusively.

When Palestine was promised to the Jews by the Balfour Declaration it was with the proviso that the local non-Jewish population be taken into consideration.

These Arab people had been resident in Palestine for several centuries but were given no consideration, their rights were trampled on and they were terrorised and forced to leave their homes.

Quoting religious authority does not really help here either, as the Jewish visionaries who came from Eastern Europe wanting to escape from European persecution were mostly socialists wanting to establish a secular state not a religious one.

Prior to the mass immigration of Jewish people into Palestine following the First World War the Jewish people had always lived in peace in the Middle East. It is European guilt and Zionist greed that destroyed that.

In its present form the Jewish state will find the next sixty years just as painful and insecure unless they are prepared to accept that the Palestinians are just as entitled to that piece of land and they show a genuine willingness to share it equitably.

It is very difficult to celebrate sixty years of nationhood on the suffering and oppression of less fortunate people who are fighting for a legitimate home.

I wonder how we would feel if some previous occupants of our homes came along and forced us out on the pretext that historically they used to live in it.

Farouk Kardahji
Palace Road
Buxton