http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=889884&category=OPINION

Israel and Arabs both responsible

Despite the insistence of several recent letter writers, it is untrue that in 1948 Arabs freely abandoned their villages solely at the request of the attacking Arab nations. This argument bars Palestinian refugees from returning to villages that they had occupied for centuries.

The record is quite clear that Israel was as responsible as the Arabs (or even more so) for the abandonment of these towns. For example, the 1948 Israeli "Operation Hiram" was a focused effort to remove all Palestinian Arabs, mostly Christian, from the upper Galilee. Systematic bombing of seven villages on Oct. 29-20, 1948, forced the surviving villagers to flee. Was this a voluntary flight?

Operation Hiram also produced such atrocities as the Israeli execution of peasants in Safsat (56 farmers killed with their hands bound), Eilaboun and Hulah. All of this to fulfill Israeli leader David Ben-Gurion's wish (Sept. 26, 1948) that this area be Arab-free. Did all of these villagers leave their homes voluntarily?

Yes, atrocities were committed by the Arabs as well (for example, at Haifa and Kfar Etzion) but far fewer -- simply because the Arabs took few Jewish settlements, while the Israelis took 400 Arab towns and villages.

It is unethical and unreasonable that a Russian Jew, newly arrived in Israel, whose forefathers may have abandoned their homes in the Holy Land millennia ago, has more rights to land than does an Arab whose family may have lived in that area for the last two to three centuries.

MICHAEL DICK

Loudonville