To the Editor:

Mark Siegel's letter, "Israel's Creation Carried High Cost," offers a distorted view of the conditions at the time of the founding of the state of Israel in 1948 with his historical omissions and factual inaccuracies.

Siegel incorrectly states that the Palestinians were disenfranchised to create Israel. Rather, at the time of the United Nations Partition resolution, the land was under British control and the Partition Plan sought to create a Jewish state side-by-side with a Palestinian state. The Jews living under the British Mandate accepted this plan. However the Palestinians, who never had sovereignty over this territory, rejected the plan, thus denying themselves their own state because the plan also allowed for the existence of a Jewish state.

Additionally, Siegel incorrectly describes an official, systematic policy by the United Nations to uproot Palestinians and segregate them into "U.N. designated areas." Rather, as soon as Israel declared its independence, five neighboring Arab armies attacked Israel, causing many Arabs living under the British Mandate to leave. They left due to their own violation, because they were encouraged by Arab victory, or in some cases as a result of pressure by Israeli forces.

Such a historically backward account gives readers a misleading and incomplete view of Israeli history and a distorted view of the current situation.