Madam, - Raymond Deane (February 25th), said to be a composer, not a historian, like a bad footballer hits the man instead of the ball, and answers not even one of the many cogent points made by the renowned historian Prof Benny Morris (February 21st).
Mr Deane also distorts history by omitting the key triple facts that (a) Israel was created after, and in accordance with, the 1945 UN Charter, by a 33 to 11 vote of the UN itself, on November 29th, 1947; (b) this same vote equally mandated a state for Arab Palestinians, but which the Arab League rejected; and (c) that the UN was continuing the original international mandate for a Jewish state of its predecessor, the League of Nations in 1924.
Mr Deane also ignores the fact that the same reality of mass refugees applied to (a) over 900,000 Jews who fled the Muslim world from 1947, and (b) 7. 7million Muslims who fled India in 1947 as another 7.5 million Hindu, Christian and Sikh refugees fled Pakistan.
- Yours, etc,
TOM CAREW, Ranelagh, Dublin, 6.