Setting history straight about Israel’s borders

Editor: Rene Goldman’s latest riposte (Writer should first learn history, Penticton Herald, Dec. 27) to a letter by Frank Martens concerning the Israeli/Palestine imbroglio, disputes the latter’s knowledge of history. History does not change, but is too often twisted or inaccurately expressed to suit an advocate’s point of view.

Such seems to be the case here. Apart from arguing about how many ethnics were driven out and by whom, Goldman asserts that Israel “won” the occupied territories in the Six Days War of 1967 after Israel “had been attacked by three of its neighbours.” Poor history on his part.

The 1967 war began as a pre-emptive strike by Israel against a mobilizing Egypt, primarily its air force. Jordan and Syria were drawn in three days later.

Biblical tales about Judea and Samaria aside, the United Nations set the borders following the 1948 territorial battles.

The recent Security Council vote and unanimous support of the rest of the world confirms the legitimacy of the the established borders.

It is painful to be told that capturing lands by conquest is a legitimate reason to hold them, in this case to build illegal settlements.

Strategic positions may be desirable, even a necessity in some cases for a defined period, but a program of settlement-building to claim Palestinian land is not.

It is also wildly inaccurate to state that no country has ever returned territories captured in a war. Germany, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Panama, Ireland, the Sinai and others come to mind.

The Middle East conundrum is an situation created by well-meaning people, ruined by narrow nationalistic ambitions and exacerbated by clumsy foreign policy favouritism.

Twisting the historic record at any level by either side prejudices any possible reasonable solution, such as that advanced by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.