Why doesn't Ralph Leavis try replying to the letter I actually wrote instead of the one he thinks I wrote (Oxford Mail, August 25)?

I get rather irritated at him and all those other purblind apologists for Israel who accuse those of us opposed to its illegal and murderous incursions into its neighbours territories of being anti-Jewish or worse, anti-semitic.

Am I anti-Jewish? No.

It isn't any wonder that the surrounding Arab nations should have been so bitterly opposed to the creation of Israel.

For a start, no-one thought to ask the Palestinians if they minded being robbed of a chunk of their land or of being denied sovereignty to make the process legal. The establishment of Israel may have been legal - it certainly wasn't moral.

As for the terrorism that has plagued the Middle East for so many years, that was started by Jewish extremists campaigning for land which the United Nations eventually handed over to them.

This was 'demand' terrorism, quite different from the 'leave-us-alone' terrorism of the Palestinians and the Lebanese.

GERALD SAMSON, Preston Road, Abingdon