In his Aug. 17 column on the current Israeli-Palestinian war (“History sides with Israel once again”), Barney Frank uses the word “history” a number of times. Unfortunately, his version of “history” begins in 1948. Like most defenders of Israel, he ignores history prior to 1948.

If he had considered history in its entirety, he might have said that a 2,000-year “problem” of Christian, European history – the persecution of the Jews, culminating in the Shoah – was “solved” at the expense of a people who had done nothing in any way comparable to what European Christianity had done to the Jews.

Using a historically invalid argument of prior possession (one that would require our returning much of the United States to Native Americans), the Israelis forced Palestinians out of their own country to solve this European “problem.”

Until this historical fact is considered, no long-term solution to this conflict is possible. If ever the George Santayana quote “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it” were applicable, now is the time.