While expressing his anti-Israel feelings and how Israel has been mistreating the "innocent" Palestinians (March 31), Kenneth Baitsholts states that Charles Krauthammer is distorting history. Just whose history book is Mr. Baitsholts reading?
The history book that I read indicates that in 1948 the United Nations divided Palestine into two parts, the western 25 percent for the Jews to form Israel and the eastern 75 percent for the Palestinian Arabs to form Trans-Jordan, later to be renamed Jordan.
All Arabs that remained in the western 25 percent after the creation of Israel were given Israeli citizenship. Some Palestinian Arabs plus Arabs of other adjacent nations have never been willing to accept the creation of Israel, and thus subsequent Arab invasions of Israel in 1967 and 1982, resulting in resounding defeats of the invaders, and Israeli control of Gaza, the Sinai, and Golan Heights, most of which Israel has since given back, in the desperate hope of somehow developing better relations with their Arab neighbors.
The Palestinian Arabs have their own nation. Apparently some Palestinian Arabs want another one.
— Jim Lieb
Palmer