Letter: Columnist's facts about Jews and Arabs are wrong

Jessica Rutter proves again that she doesn't need to know anything on a subject to write her biweekly diatribe. She doesn't mention that in 1937 the Peel Commission offered to divide up the land encompassed by modern day Israel between the Jewish and Arab population based almost purely on land ownership. This partition was accepted by the Jews and rejected by the Arabs. In 1948, the Arabs under the British Palestine mandate were again offered a state by the United Nations that was accepted by the Jews and rejected by the Arabs.

Instead of her claim that all the Jews were white European colonists that displaced Palestinian Arabs, of Israeli 1948 population was contained 650,000 of the 900,000 Arab Jews who had had been forced from their 2000 year old communities in Arab countries during the 1948 war. These refugees, like Arab refugees fleeing the war, were placed in refugee camps. Genetic studies have also shown that European Jews in Israel are direct descendants of those who fled from oppression in the Middle East.

Instead of her claim that Palestinians are denied citizenship, the Jewish refugees from Arab countries in 1948 were given a permanent home in Israel, while Arab states denied the Palestinians citizenship and kept the Arab refugees in camps. Of the 100 million refugees in the 1900s, the Palestinians are the only ones not given citizenship in the countries to which they fled (Jordan and Egypt).

There's strong evidence that a large portion of refugees left their homes voluntarily until invading Arab armies could destroy Israel. The Arabs who didn't flee, awaiting Israel's destruction, are now full citizens and members of the Isareli legislature and supreme court. But let's not let facts cloud Rutter's rhetoric.