In preparing my townhall column for Wednesday, I spent some time researching the bloody, brutal history of Palestinian terrorism against Jewish settlements in the Middle East in 1921, 1926, 1929, 1936 and 1937-9. None of these incidents (which included 415 Jewish deaths out of a community of barely 500,000 in '37-39) can be blamed on the State of Israel because that state didn't exist until 1948. The "Yishuv" -- the villages and cities built by Jewish refugees returning to their ancient homeland-- was hardly a military power, and only developed self-defense capacities in response to ceaseless Arab attacks. In other words, contrary to popular belief, the creation of the State of Israel didn't start Arab terrorism, but Palestinian violence convinced even skeptical and pacifist Jews that they needed a well-armed, self-reliant nation-state to protect them from ceaseless and merciless attacks from their Palestinian neighbors. Watch for much more on this subject in my column tomorrow.....