Several letter writers have repeated the Zionist myth about Arab civilians voluntarily leaving Israel in May 1948, as if that makes stealing their possessions okay. We are to believe 750,000 civilians "volunteered" to become refugees.

The BBC, monitoring the airwaves during the crucial months, couldn't find evidence of such encouragement nor could current Israel historians like Professor Ilan Pappe of Haifa University and Benny Morris. On the contrary, these historians support the refugees' stories. They left because of a military campaign started before Israeli Independence, and the subsequent entrance of the Arab armies. Over 400 villages, towns were "cleared."

"I am willing to forgo any implementation of the right of return," says one refugee quoted in the Economist recently. "But I will not accept an agreement that gives up my right of return. Israel was responsible for my exile. And it must recognize that responsibility." He never went to Europe to poach others' land. If Israelis want real peace, they have to face their history. The right of return is not something those terrible Arabs dreamed up. It was a United Nations precondition to accept Israel. Civilians don't forfeit their property because of war.

Fifty years later, four million involuntary refugees from terror survive. They demand their possessions, their rights! And no amount of bombing or occupation will make them forgo them. Israelis, insisting on rewriting history instead of facing it, voted for the architect of Sabra and Shatilla, Ariel Sharon.