Yesterday, Sept. 9, was the anniversary of the worst Italian bombing raid of WWII against British-ruled Palestine: attack on Tel Aviv in which 117 Jews, 7 Arabs & 1 Australian soldier were killed. #War_of_Shadows @OrenNahari@SpitfireFilly@Ibishblog
Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the ex-mufti of Jerusalem, sent congratulations from his exile in Baghdad to Mussolini for bombing the Jewish city.
But here the story gets more complicated.
As @ArielliNir writes, Jews & Arabs "in Palestine exhibited remarkable solidarity when the air raids began." Arab mayor of Jaffa attended funeral for Jewish victims. Arabic daily "Filastin" blasted "criminal Italian bombardment of Tel Aviv." researchgate.net/publication/23…
The Mufti had influence in Palestine - but not near as much as you'd think from accounts that make him synomous with Palestinian Arabs.
In May 1940, acc. to a British intelligence report, Mufti's followers were urging a new revolt in Palestine.
But there was no revolt.
Earlier in 1940, acc to another document in MI5 files, Mufti sent instructions that "Palestinian Arabs were not to volunteer to serve with the British forces."
Overall, fewer Arabs than Jews from Palestine joined British Army during WWII. Clearly, Jews had high motivation to fight Nazis. But also, acc. to June 1942 British report, "Arab recruiting unsatisfactory owing to failure to reach requisite physical standard."
I leave it others to research why Palestinian Arabs were in poorer health than Jews. But Palestinian politics were complex, and quoting Mufti is a poor way to know what Palestine's Arabs thought. #War_of_Shadows
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Israeli legal officials tell Netanyahu: an independent state commission of inquiry into the war is the only way to avoid arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court. (Because the ICC’s jurisdiction applies only when national judicial systems fail to act.)
Legal officials told Netanyahu in meeting today that he needs to establish a state commission of inquiry.
News item says Netanyahu didn't decide.
What item left unsaid: Netanyahu desperately wants to avoid independent commission of inquiry with full judicial powers.
Reason is obvious: an independent judicial inquiry into war is likely to assign megatons of responsibility to Netanyahu.
I understand Joe Biden's frustration, but asking Netanyahu to stop bullshitting is like asking the sun to rise in the west.
"A person who lies is... responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it...The bullshitter...does not reject the authority of the truth... He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are."
The quote is from Harry Frankfurt's immortal essay, "On Bullshit."
Required reading!
US Sect of State Blinken saying that Israeli settlements in West Bank are "inconsistent with international law" is indeed important symbolically.
However, news items on this are mixing up the history of US policy on settlement illegality.
The Carter administration wasn't the first to label settlements illegal. That was US policy from 1967 onward. As seen in this cable of 8 April 1968 from the State Dept to the US embassy in Israel:
In 1976, the US ambassador to the UN, William Scranton, said in the Security Council that settlements violate IV Geneva and are illegal.
This @washingtonpost deep dive, like others, confirms Hamas deliberately provoked the invasion of Gaza, knowing that it was sacrificing countless Palestinian lives.
@washingtonpost The deaths of thousands in Gaza are as much part of Hamas's plan as the deaths of Israeli civilians on October 7.
The goal was to set off greater conflict, in the name of achieving Hamas's goal - both cruel and utterly without a chance of success - of destroying Israel.
@washingtonpost Hamas fought its way through the thin line of Israeli soldiers on the border in order to reach civilians - to kill, take hostages, and commit other atrocities.
Churchill's knowledge of Nazi mass murder in occupied Soviet territory came from Bletchley Park, where master codebreaker John Tiltman's team had cracked the cipher used by special German police units to report how many people they'd shot. (2) @calder_walton@spyhistory
Like this message from 18 July 1941, in which a Nazi police regiment reports that it had shot "1153 Jewish plunderers."
The reports were coldly bureaucratic.