LETTER OF THE WEEK

This letter to the editor of the Melbourne Age which responds to some characteristic inventive interpretation of history from Ali Kazak appeared in yesterday's edition. It isn't easy to find on the internet but congratulations to Jamie Hyams:-

State was on offer

ALI Kazak makes some misrepresentations as to Israel's founding (Letters, 28/5). Claims about the supposedly evil Plan Dalet are based on the work of Israeli historian Benny Morris. However, Morris himself has written, "Plan Dalet (Plan D) of 10 March 1948 was not a plan of the Haganah, the main Jewish militia, to ethnically cleanse Arab cities and villages but the master plan for securing the area of the Jewish state-to-be in face of the impending pan-Arab invasion."

The truth is that while the Jews accepted the UN plan partitioning the Palestinian Mandate into a Jewish state where the Jews were in the majority and an Arab state where the Arabs were in the majority, the Arabs rejected it and launched a war designed to kill or expel all the Jews. They could have had their state but they refused, and that's the real Palestinian catastrophe.

Jamie Hyams, Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, South Melbourne