MONICA Wusteman rather arrogantly accuses a correspondent of ignorance because he dares to have a different slant on the complex history of the Israel/Palestine conflict to her and her friends in the York Palestine Solidarity Campaign (Letters, July 20).

Mr Balejscik may have different views from her but ignorance is a term which could equally be applied to her own rather biased distortion of facts.

She purposefully omits to mention the number of Arab terror attacks which took place in the period of the British Mandate in which hundreds of innocent Jews lost their lives.

The violence was not one-sided and Britain could do little to stop the bloodshed.

The Palestine problem was turned over to the UN which agreed to a partition plan to take place in October 1948.

The surrounding Arab states bitterly opposed this and mobilised their armies to ensure that a Jewish state did not come into being.

The Jewish leaders in Palestine decided they dared not wait and on the day that the British Mandate in Palestine officially ended (May 14, 1948), Israel declared independence and the first Arab-Israeli war began.

The Palestine refugee problem was a result of this war, not the cause of it.

Ms Wusteman may not like the facts of history as they stand but this gives her no right to twist them to suit personal and political agendas.

David Lyon,

Kingfisher Close,

Huntington, York.

Updated: 10:37 Wednesday, July 27, 2005