To the editor:

Monday’s editorial about the history of the conflict between the Arabs and Israelis was slightly misleading on two issues. One, few Arabs become Christian as there is a high price to live as a Christian in Muslim countries. Muslims who convert to Christianity are made extremely uncomfortable by their own families and their society. (Google: “Rifqa Bary,” “Brigitte Gabriel” and “Act for America”).

Two, according to PBS’ “The 50 Years War: Israel and the Arabs” and other research, the U.S. did not support nor was it responsible for Israel’s arms or funding from the very beginning of her independence in May, 1948.

Although President Truman’s vote in the League of Nations was numerically the deciding vote for Israel’s sovereignty, most of his administration was opposed, and the American State Department declared an embargo on all weapons and war material to both Jews and Arabs in Palestine.

Five nations declared war against Israel the day after she became a nation. The Israel Defense Forces was without organization, arms, military planes or machinery and had to depend on smuggled weapons from the Soviet Union and the Czechs, not the U.S. Not until the administration of President John Kennedy in the early 1960s were American arms shipments made to Israel.