R. Rimmer, responding to a letter by J. Rudd last week, questions the authenticity of Israel being the natural homeland of the Jewish people.

Since the Jewish conquest over the Canaanites in 1272 BC the Jews have had a continuous presence in the land for the past 3,300 years.

In 135AD, Roman Emperor Hadrian renamed the province Syria Palaestina, in an attempt to erase Jewish history from the area.

He re-named the land after the Israelites traditional enemy the Philistines as a final insult, hence the term Palestine.

So what do prominent Palestinians (so-called) have to comment on the status of Palestine and Palestinians?

Professor Azmi Bishara:– a 'Palestinian Arab”

'There is no 'Palestinian nation”, The word 'Palestine” itself is a colonial invention used by the Romans in order to erase the Jewish identity of Judea and Israel!

Walid Shoebatt, who was a former PLO terrorist, acknowledged the lie he had been fighting for when he asked, "Why is it that on June 4th, 1967, I went to bed as a Jordanian and woke up as a Palestinian? We considered ourselves Jordanian until the Jews returned to Jerusalem. Then, all of a sudden, we were Palestinians."

Syrian dictator Hafez Assad (father of the present dictator) told PLO leader Yasser Arafat, "You do not represent Palestine as much as we do. Never forget this one point: There is no such thing as a Palestinian people, there is no Palestinian entity, there is only Syria."

A Smith, Bellevue