Howard Mednick claims ;{Letter, March 22} that "The Palestinians wrote the book on terrorism." The facts document clearly that Israel and its leaders created terrorism in the Middle East.

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

The first act of shooting down a civilian airliner was deliberately carried out by Israel when a Libyan airliner was shot down by Israeli jet fighters over Sinai, in February 1973, on the orders of Israeli prime minister, Golda Meir, killing 107 of its passengers and its entire French crew.

A horrible crime was committed in the assassination of the Swedish nobleman, Count Folke Bernadotte, the UN mediator, on Sept. 17,1948, in Jerusalem on the orders of Yitzhak Shamir, later a prime minister of Israel.

Israeli terrorism and acts of assassination against Palestinians continue, including the outrageous assassination today of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin. It is interesting to note that Sheikh Yassin was released , from Israeli gaol in 1997, in a deal with king Hussein of Jordan, in return for Jordan releasing secret Mossad agents, who were using chemical WMD, in the attempt to assassinate Khalid Meshal in Amman.

Here again we saw Israel not only the only state to hold nuclear WMD in the Middle East, but also using chemical and earlier, in 1948,biological WMD.

Israeli terror was not restricted to Palestinians and Europeans but included its own closest ally, the US. In 1954, Israeli secret agents bombed the US diplomatic centres in Cairo and Alexandria [known as the Lavon Affair], in attempt to blame it on the Egyptians. Later Israel honoured the perpetrator, Marcello Ninio. The attack on the USS Liberty in 1967 was another example.

Zionist terror did not spare Jews. In 1951, Israeli agents were dispatched to Iraq, where they tossed hand grenades into the crowded Massauda Shem-Tov Synagogue, causing death and injury to innocent worshippers, in order to blame it on the Iraqis, and encourage reluctant Iraqi Jews to emigrate to Israel.

This is a minute sample of Israeli terrorism, without listing the scores of massacres, like Deir Yassin,1948, Qibya,1953, Sabra and Shatilla,1982, amongst many others.

I think it behooves Israel's apologists to take note of historic facts and give 'credit' where it is due, as to who created terrorism in the Middle East.