Stanley Harrison’s letter to the editor of June 14 characterized Israel as, “the only modern nation that, through conquest, has more than doubled its size.” What the writer omitted, of course, is the small detail that Israel’s expansion has come about as a direct result of having to respond to the efforts of its neighbors to obliterate it. This was the case in 1948 and in 1967, when the belligerence of the Arab nations was exceeded only by their military ineptitude, leading to territorial losses.

What is unique in modern, or any other time, is Israel’s willingness to return land to the would-be conquerors which it defeated, in exchange for a simple concession of its right to exist. This was true of the return of the Sinai peninsula to Egypt, and would have been true of nearly all of the West Bank and Gaza had Arafat accepted the peace proposal offered by Israel’s Barak under the auspices of President Clinton.

Unfortunately, the PLO, which was founded with the destruction of Israel as its express goal even prior to the Six-Day War and resulting “occupation” of the territories, has used the Oslo process to foment terrorism of the most heinous sort, to import arms and build up armed forces in violation of signed agreements, and to multiply the misery of the Palestinians by a deliberate failure to improve infrastructure or establish a firm economic footing. Israel’s response to terrorism has been considerably more measured than the U.S. response would likely be if proportional numbers of its citizens were being massacred and were its borders being violated regularly by hostile forces.

Indeed, Israel has lost many soldiers specifically because it has chosen not to rely primarily on the massive high-tech arsenal at its disposal to route out the hotbeds of terrorist activity which have flourished under the Palestinian Authority (and the “neutral” supervision of U.N. agencies in the territories).

Israel is about the combined size of Aroostook and Penobscot counties, and less than one-half of 1 percent of the size of the Arab hegemony. Despite its already minute presence, it has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to make territorial concessions, even with those who have attempted to destroy it, all in the hopes of peace and security.

However, as long as the Arab tyrannies of the region continue to call for Israel’s destruction and continue to use such provocation as a means of mollifying their own desperate populations, Israel must continue to defend itself as if it were fighting for its very existence. Which, in fact, it is.

Bruce Freedberg lives in Bangor.