I write to give a few historical facts which will highlight the inaccuracies in the phrases "Israeli occupation in Gaza" and "Occupied Palestinian West Bank" included in the "Mortar bomb near - miss in Israel" article (April 24).
After conquering Israel, the Romans changed Israel's name to Palestine in response to Jewish refusal to deviate from belief in One God. The Philistines (Palestinians) were a tribe that never had rule or sovereignty over the land of Israel and were in
fact Israel's enemy. They disappeared as a people group 3,000 years ago. However, there has been a continuous Jewish presence in the land of Israel for the past 3,300 years (including 1,000 years when they actually ruled it.)
In 1917 Britain promised to return the Biblical lands to the Jewish people in the Balfour Declaration, yet over 80% of this was eventually given to the Arabs (the land we know as Jordan.) In 1947 the Jewish people gratefully accepted this 18% when it was offered in the Partition Plan by the United Nations. The surrounding Arab states refused to recognise Israel as a nation and attacked it when independence was declared on May 14, 1948.
Judea and Samaria (the biblical heartland of the Jewish people) was recaptured along with Gaza in the defensive Six Day War of 1967. It was at this point in time that the Arabs started identifying themselves as Palestinians – brilliant propaganda to claim more land from Israel and actually the initiative of Egyptian born Yasser Arafat.
Israel has ceded most of this "West Bank" and all of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority in the hope of living peacefully with its neighbours.
Despite this the constitutions of Hamas and Fatah (P.L.O.) STILL call for the destruction of Israel. That is the real issue– the very existence of the nation of Israel.
Anne Lomax
New Mills
via e-mail
The full article contains 318 words and appears in Buxton Advertiser newspaper.
