Haim Belisowski makes outrageous falsehoods in his letter ;{"Ignore referendom" May 5}. He states : "Jews wanting to live on their ancient homeland, on land purchased at full value..." The historic land of Palestine is the homeland of the Palestinian people, who, and their ancestors, have lived on this land since history began, a fact documented by all reputable historians. Professor Maxime Rodinson, Professor of History at the Sorbonne University in Paris, and who is Jewish, stated in 1968 :" The Arab population of Palestine was native in all the senses of the word and their roots in Palestine can be traced back at least 40 centuries." The Hebrew tribes came to the Land of Canaan as invaders and were expelled by other invaders, the Romans.

As to the 'purchase', 92% of the land Israel occupied before 1967, was illegally expropriated and its legal owners are the Palestinian refugees who Israel expelled in 1948. As to the settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, they are built on illegally expropriated Palestinian land and are illegal as defined by international law, Security Council resolutions and the Fourth Geneva Convention, and thus defined as war crimes.