Jerusalem Post: “We are of the same race and blood, and cooperation will bring great prosperity to the land,” wrote Emir Faisal to Felix Frankfurter in 1917. Faisal was known for his affinity to the Zionists who had begun streaming to the Holy Land; in 1919, he signed a cooperation agreement with Chaim Weizmann, to whom he wrote that he was “mindful of the racial kinship and ancient bonds existing between the Arabs and the Jewish people.”
But Faisal’s proclamations of kinship with the Jews were more than lip service to a commonly held belief, says Tsvi Misinai, who knows perhaps more about the origins of the modern Palestinians than anyone. “Faisal’s paternal line was Hashemite,” he says, “meaning he was directly descended from Muhammad.
Illustrative: Jewish families flee Arab rioting in Jerusalem s Old City in August 1929. (Public domain)
Palestinian Arabs gather at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, in an anti-Zionist demonstration on March 8, 1920, prior to the Nabi Musa holiday on which violent rioting took place. (Public domain)
Illustrative: Then-British Home Secretary Winston Churchill on a visit to the British Mandate of Palestine in March 1921, nearly three decades before it became the Jewish state. (Churchill Museum)
Then-British Home Secretary Winston Churchill with Sir Herbert Samuel during a visit to Jerusalem in March 1921. (Public domain)
Jewish refugees, arriving in Haifa, Palestine on April 14, 1920, aboard the Theodore Herzl support on their shoulders the bodies, in white shrouds, two of their compatriots, whom refugees charge where slain when the Theodore Herzl was boarded by British personnel after unsuccessfully attempting to run the British blockade. (AP Photo/Tom Fitzsimmons)
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Part 1: The turn of the tide
It’s the end of May 1941, Baghdad. The air in the city quivers, not only with the usual summer’s heat, but also with anxious anticipation. In April that year, an anti-British Iraqi nationalist movement supported by Nazi Germany carried out a coup against the Britain-supported Iraqi government. But the celebrations of independence from the British were premature. For the Allied Forces, the loss of Iraq threatened to cut them of oil supplies and strategic routes. Worse still, other Middle Eastern countries would likely follow suit and change their allegiance, bringing devastating losses to the Allies in the Middle East. So by mid-April, British troops had arrived in Iraq and, joined by the Iraqi forces loyal to them, had begun their occupation of parts of the county.
Yom HaShoah Holocaust Remembrance | The Jewish Press - JewishPress com | Jeff Dunetz | 29 Nisan 5781 – April 11, 2021 jewishpress.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from jewishpress.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.