He speaks of "four major wars and 50-plus years of terrorism". Let us look at who introduced terrorism in the Middle East. It was the Zionist terrorist gangs and Israel that introduced terrorism in the Middle East. Lord Moyne, the British diplomat, was assasinated by Mr. Shamir's Stern terrorist gang in November 1944 in Cairo. It was Mr. Meachem Begin's Irgun Zwei Leumi terrorist gang that blew up The King David Hotel in Jerusalem, in 1946, killing over a hundred people. The UN Mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte, was assasinated in Jerusalem, in September 1948, by the Stern gang, on the orders of Mr. Shamir. There were many more such acts of terrorism at that time.

The first act of air piracy, in the history of international civil aviation, was carried out by Israel in Dec. 1954, when a civilian Syrian airliner was forced down in Tel Aviv and its passengers and crew held hostage for days, despite international condemnation.

The first act of shooting down a civilian airliner was deliberately carried out, on the direct orders of the then Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, when a Libyan civilian airliner was shot down in Feb. 1973, killing 107 of its passengers and its French crew.

Israel's terror was not restricted to Palestinians or Arabs, but included its own closest supporter the USA. In 1964, Israeli secret agents bombed US diplomatic sites in Cairo and Alexandria [The Lavon Affair], in an attempt to blame it on Egypt. Israel later honored the perpetrators, including Marcello Ninio.

Zionist terror did not spare Jews. In 1940, Menachem Begin's Irgun Zwei Leumi gang bombed the ship The Patria, in Haifa harbour, carrying Jewish refugees, killing 240 Jews, to blame it on the British for political gain.

In 1950-1951, Israeli agents were dispatched to Iraq, where they tossed hand grenades in The Massauda Shem-Tov synagogue, killing worshippers, to encourage Jewish immigration to Israel.

Israeli terrorism with killing Palestinian leaders in Europe, as well as extra- judicial assasinations that are going on now in the occupied territories, still continue.That is not to mention the systematic process of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people,by Israel,in 1948 and 1967, and the destruction of over 400 Palestinian towns and villages in Israel and over 7000 homes in occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.

As to the wars Mr. Goldberg speaks of, they were directly initiated by Israel in 1956, 1967 and 1982. In 1956, Israel, in collusion with Britain and France, invaded Sinai in a deliberate war of aggression, universally condemned, even by the US. In 1967, Israel

invaded Sinai in a war that was deliberately initiated by Israel, as testified to by its own leaders.To quote only one, Mr. Menachem Begin. while Prime Minister, addressing Israel's National Defence College, stated: "In June 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai did not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest ourselves. We decided to attack him"[The New York Times, Aug. 21, 1982]. Perhaps a degree of honesty, on the part of Israel' s supporters, may be called for here. The invasion of Lebanon in 1982, was orchestrated by Mr. Ariel Sharon, a war that caused the death of over 20,000 Lebanese and Palestinian civilians, apart from the brutal cold-blooded murder of over 2000 Palestinian refugees in the Sabra and Shatilla Massacre. The October 1973 war was initiated by Egypt and Syria, in an attempt to regain their own illegally occupied land.

Mr. Goldberg speaks of the concessions by Mr. Barak. The Palestinians are not asking for concessions from Barak or Israel. They are asking for Israeli compliance with international law and repeated Security Council resolutions, calling for complete withdrawal from illegally occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza and the dismantlement of all Jewish settlements, which are illegal and in violation of Security Council resolutions and The Fourth Geneva Convention. This illegal occupation has been allowed to stand for over 33 years.