SIR – There really is no need for Alan O’ Day Scott to talk about 3,000 years of Jewish history, or to use the tragedy of the Holocaust to bolster his argument about the modern-day Palestinian/Israeli conflict.
There are simple facts that any honest analyst investigating the conflict must confront.
On the eve of the Israeli conquest in 1948, Palestinians owned 93 per cent of the land, which they had inhabited and cultivated for centuries and comprised around 68 per cent of the population.
Of the remaining population, most were recent Jewish immigrants, many of whom were survivors of a European Holocaust in which Palestinians had played absolutely no part at all.
After the Israeli conquest of 1948, 700,000 Palestinians were forced off their lands.
In the aftermath of 1967 war, a further 300,000 were expelled.
Today, the Palestinian territories amount to 15 per cent of all land the Palestinians once inhabited. It should also be noted that this 15 per cent of land is constantly being annexed by the Israeli state, and home to at least 280,000 illegal settlers.
The conflict has absolutely nothing to do with ancient history, religion, terrorism, anti-Semitism or the Holocaust. It is about conquest, land and expulsion.
Michael Best, Woodhall Road, Calverley
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