RECENT correspondent Mr Tobias was ridiculed in the reply (Nov 10) from two people sympathetic to Palestinian claims in the Middle East. May I now throw in my "two penn'orth" in search of truth and enlightenment?

There never was such a place as Palestine. This erroneous term was given to the land which the brutal Roman Empire seized and plundered around 70 BC. The Roman governor called it Palestine, a corruption of Philistine which, in effect, meant a place for non-Jews!

This, of course, didn't go down too well with the indigenous local people, namely the Jews. They fought back where they could and certainly put up a brave defiance at Masada.

To say that Israel hit out with a "highly sophisticated army" at Palestinians in the country, isn't completely true.

After the Balfour Declaration and Israel's birth on May 14, 1948, the Jews were attacked immediately on three different fronts by, at the time, superior Arab legions. These legions were repulsed, as they were in later battles throughout recent years.

Now we have the sad situation that we see daily on worldwide television. Both Jews and Arab families are in turmoil, yet both are semitic peoples divided in their beliefs at Abraham. Shalom Aleichem and Salamm Alekum are not so far apart, are they? Or are they?

Israel may not be perfect, which country is? But at least it is a vibrant democracy. It is a place where people can vote a government in, or out, and you can't say that for the many despotic Arab nations that lie near or around it!

G. SHAW