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William safire, in his diatribe: {"Tracing Saddam's Links with Osama bin Laden", Oct. 23}, lashes out at Saudi Arabia and Iraq for alleged support for terrorism. Not a word ,however, is said in relation to Israel, the state that has invented terrorism in the Middle East. To relate Israel's record of terrorism would take volumes, but I will relate few examples:

Israeli record in the assassination of Palestinian leaders and intellectuals, in Europe and the Middle East is voluminous, including the use of chemical weapons, as in the case of Khaled Meshal in Amman. Ehud Barak gloats about his role ,dressed as an Arab woman, in the assassination of three Palestinian leaders including the poet Kemal Nasser, in Beirut, in the seventies. Numerous massacres of Palestinians were committed in 1948, virtually in every town in Palestine as documented by Israeli officers. The massacre of 2000 Palestinian refugees, mostly women and children, in Sabra and Shatilla, orchestrated by Ariel sharon in 1982, as well as the killing of nearly 20,000 Lebanese and palestinians in Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982, is not worthy of mention. What about The Qana Massacre of 107 Lebanese women and children hiding in the UN headquarters in South Lebanon, in 1996, by Shimon Peres' government.

Israel's record of war crimes is lengthy and includes the murder, in cold blood, of hundreds of Egyptian POW's in 1956 and 1967, as documented by Israeli officers who participated in these crimes. These war crimes also include the total demolition of the villages of Imwas[ Emmaus], Yalu and Beit Nuba [my own home town] on the direct orders of Yitzhak Rabin.

He speaks of "wearing of blinders". Perhaps he should ask the US Congress why Israeli terrorism against its closest ally, the US, is not worthy of examination, as in the case of Israeli bombing and sinking of the US "The Liberty", in June 1967, killing 35, and injuring 170 American servicemen. Israeli bombing of American diplomatic centres in Cairo and Alexandria in 1954, on the orders of Israeli Defence Minister, Lavon,[The Lavon Affair], is less than worthy of mention.

Israeli terrorism did not spare even Jews, as in the case of the bombing of a synagogue in Baghdad, in 1951, by Modechai Ben Porat, sent by Yigal allon, killing Jewish worshippers, so as to blame it on Iraqis and encourage Jewish immigration to Israel.