Re: ‘Can Israel really be called a democracy' (The Weekend Sun, March 13). Wesley Parish wrote questioning terming Israel a democracy and inferring that: 'Israel violates the human rights of the Palestinian Arabs.”
Fact: Israel granted full citizenship to all of the Palestinian Arabs who fell within its borders after the War of Independence (1948).

Arabic is an official language in Israel. Israel remains to this day one of the few countries in the Middle East where Arabs can legitimately vote and the only one where women can vote. Furthermore, there are currently 12 Arab members of the Knesset, (Israeli Parliament.)
Mr Parish also states Israel expelled the majority of Palestine's Arab population in 1948 to create the Jewish State.

Fact: In his book, ‘Palestine Betrayed', author Efraim Karsh wrote: 'Israel's war of independence divides into two parts. Ferocious fighting began within hours of the United Nations vote to partition Palestine on November 29, 1947, and lasted till the eve of the British evacuation on May 14, 1948. The international conflict began on May 15 (the day after Israel came into being), when five Arab state armies invaded, with hostilities lasting until January 1949. The first phase consisted largely of guerrilla warfare, the second primarily of conventional warfare. Over half (between 300,000 and 340,000) of the 600,000 Arab refugees fled before the British evacuation, and most of them in the final month.

Palestinians fled in a wide range of circumstances and for varied reasons. Arab commanders ordered noncombatants out of the way of military maneuvers; or they threatened laggards with treatment as traitors if they stayed; or they demanded that villages be evacuated to improve their standing on the battlefield; or they promised a safe return in a matter of days.”

In his book, The Arab–Israeli Conflict: The Palestine War 1948, author Efraim Karsh cited the substantial, active role the Arab Higher Committee played in the exoduses from Haifa, Tiberias, and Jaffa as an important part of understanding what he called the "birth of the Palestinian refugee problem".

Fact: On November 28, 1973 the Summit of the Arab Conference was held in Algiers; among various items on the agenda was the issuing of a Declaration to the EEC. They specified that their conditions for co-operating with the EEC were that Europe would defend Arab claims to Jerusalem and the " occupied territories " and that European states would recognize an autonomous people.

This enabled the Arab states to keep the Palestinian refugee problem alive as a weapon against Israel: under the older designation " Arabs " used in UN Resolution 242 – the Arabs of Palestine might easily have been settled in the neighbouring Arab states, especially in Jordan – formerly part of Palestine.

So whilst the world have been berating the Israeli position for retaliating against Hamas rockets etc, it is well to keep in mind that the refugee camps of Gaza, the West Bank and the Golan Heights are merely an Arab political pawn in the greater picture.

Alan E Smith, Bellevue.