Sheila Dropkin { Letter " Wake up, Arafat" Feb. 7} is re-writing history and clearly does not understand the history or the context of the Palestine/Israel conflict.

Today's Palestinians, Muslims and Christians, are the descendents of the Canaanites and Jebusites and other tribes who lived in this land since history began, and long before the Hebrew tribes invaded the Land of Canaan. Professor Maxime Rodinson, who is Jewish and as Professor of History at the Sorbonne University in Paris, stated in 1968 : " The Arab population of Palestine was native in all senses of the word and their roots in Palestine can be traced back at least forty centuries."