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Dear Editor and Mr. Fleming, I would like to congratulate and thank you for the various aricles you have contributed to this newspaper. I find your views factual and pragmatic. I agree with you on practically all subjects and particularly on Israel. I trust you are not too bothered with the various vicious rants which appear occasionally. They are counter-productive specially the last one from Mr. Ash: one reads only a few lines and can guess the rest (complete waste of paper) ! I, myself, come from a French family; during the last World War and at the time of the shameful Vichy Government, three quarters of the French Jews were saved by anonymous people (now called “les Justes”) including my own mother who sheltered two young Jewish girls before herself dying in November 1944 through the lack of medicines.

Nowadays France has the largest Jewish Community in Europe, many of whom regret and despair at the attitude of the Israeli government knowing that it might appear the strongest but that the sad thing is that the country will NEVER be at peace unless it accepts to change.

I hope this will be of some interest to you.
Yours cordially
Janine Joubert - La Rapita

Dear Sir, Having arrived on this beautiful island only 15 hours ago, I have only now read the letter written by Hugh Ash. I must congratulate him: it was an excellent and accurate appraisal of the Israel/Palestine problem. It also proved the paucity of Ray Fleming's case.

But Mr Ash made no mention of a basic, fundamental, underlying problem which sooner or later must be addressed.
This problem is that at present there are two Palestines. There is the legal Palestine, created at San Remo in 1920 at the conference, of the victorious nations in the 1914 - 1918 war. The purpose was to decide how best to break up the now vanquished Turkish Ottoman Empire. At this meeting several new Arab states were carved out of this vast empire (Iraq, Lebanon etc,). But one piece of the captured territory, the area covering virtually all of the biblical 'Eretz Isroel' stretching (and I am quoting) “From Dan to Beersheba” covering both East and West Banks of the Jordan River was delineated specifically as “The National Homeland of the Jewish People”. This agreement was ratified by the League of Nations in 1922 and on June 30th of the same year, by both houses of the USA Congress who wrote it into American law.

Clearly
Further, Article 80 of the UN clearly states that it has no jurisdiction over such trustee agreements. Even the fact that Britain land-grabbed 77.5 of the land to create the then illegal state of Trans-Jordan (now simply Jordan) does not, nor cannot alter it. All it means is that we already have a 'two-state solution' insofar as Jordan exists within the borders of the legal Jewish Palestine.

The other ‘Palestine' which is now occupying the UN's attention is entirely illegal. It was the creation of Yasser Arafat circa 1967, which he dreamed up after the invading Arab armies had been defeated by Israel.

Prior to that date, all references to ‘the Palestinians' had referred specifically to the Jewish population - the Arabs being known as Jordanians or simply ‘Arabs'. (I was there at the time and can personally vouch for this).

This is further borne out by the fact that prior to 1967, when Jordan (illegally) occupied all of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, there were no cries for, or even mention of, a separate state of “Arab Palestine”. There has never been a Muslim Palestine in all history - which is why Arafat's “Palestine” had no borders and no history. Hence a demand for its ‘return' is pure nonsense.

International law
Sir, in international law there is not the slightest question of doubt: all of the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem is Jewish territory. This is an immanent, immutable and unchangeable fact. Any attempt by the UN or anyone else to change it in any way puts them in breach of international law.

Breaking international law would set a precedent that would inevitably end in war. (EG. Turkey could demand the return of Iraq and Lebanon. or India the return of Pakistan etc, etc.)
One last thought.
If Britain had not broken international law by the illegal creation of Jordan, 6'000'000 Jews would have marched into a Jewish Palestine instead of into the Nazi gas ovens.

Sincerely, David Lee
Majorca