I FIND it amazing how Israel sympathisers like Mr Paul (Letters, August 21) go back 2000 years to justify current atrocities. All I can say is “Please grow up: otherwise we will have Native Americans throwing out the Pilgrim Fathers and all their descendants, and they’ll all come to England.”

Coming more up to date, Mr Paul makes two misleading claims based on Israeli propaganda. One is an untruth; the other is a half-truth.

First, he says “The Palestinian people of today are a fiction, created ... in January 1964”. That is untrue and Israeli nonsense designed only to de-legitimise Palestine.

He can find any number of references to Palestine and Palestinians prior to 1964.

This includes the British Mandate (1918-1948), which produced endless coins, stamps, and travel posters using the P-word.

I have good Israeli friends who proudly describe themselves as “Jewish Palestinians” because their families moved to Palestine when they were ejected from Spain in 1492 by those nasty European Christians. Palestine is not defined by religion as Israel is.

Mr Paul’s half-truth is his reference to UN Resolution 181 (1947), which divided Palestine into Jewish and Arab states.

Many Arabs opposed this ethnic separatism, and still do, while the Jews, especially those from Europe, generally wanted separatism.

But Resolution 181 also stated that Arabs in the Jewish part of Palestine should have their rights respected, which has never been done.

John Bibby, Straylands Grove, York.