PROMISES TO ARABS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 245, 13 September 1940, Page 7

PROMISES TO ARABS.

BROKEN BY ITALIANS,

LONDON, Sept. 11. Palestine is mourning to-day for the persons killed in tho indiscriminate Italian bombing raid on Tel Aviv. They include many Jews formerly resident in the United States. It is significant that the Mayor of Jewish Tel Aviv has received messages of condolence from Arab leaders all over Palestine.

Other messages include one from GcneralSir Thomas Blarney, Commander of the Australian Imperial Forces, who says: “We will remember this in the time of reckoning.” British officials pointed out to-day that there were no military objectives within miles of where the bombs were dropped.

ROME’S ADMISSION.

Tho Rome radio announced that it was the neighbouring town of Jaffa which the Italians bombed. Reuter says that in Cairo this is regarded as an open admission tliaJ Italy has broken her promises to tho Arabs. For months past Italy has been telling the Arabs that she will not wage war on them.

This Reuter message adds that Mussolini has always believed that the Arabs could be turned against Britain, and that since the Abyssinian campaign he has been at considerable pains to woo them. The failure of his tactics is shown by tlie fact that since Italy entered the war the Arab world has been linked closer to Britain.

The message also says that Italy’s use of the Nazis’ unscrupulous methods of attack from the air is hardly likely to change the Arabs’ ideas; in fact, tlie Arabs believe that this is the beginning of ah attempt by the Italians to terrorise'civilians in the Nazi way.

An attempt to muzzle Moslem opinion is to be found in the banning of Egyptian newspapers in Syria and Lebanon. This lias been done under the influence of the Italian Armistice Commission now in Syria, and a Router message says it is greatly resented because Syria lias relied on Egyptian newspapers for interpretation of the news. -

One Cairo newspaper reports growing resentment in Syria with the Italian Commission, and says that an Italian colonel, a member of the Commission, was attacked by a crowd in one of the main squares of Beirut.

REACTION IN SYRTA

A Cairo newspaper says that tlie Syrian population is alarmed regarding the Armistice Commission. The people suspect the Italians of preparing to occupy Syria in force after tlie French have been disarmed.

General de I’Aminat, High Commissioner under General de Gaulle for French Equatorial Africa, has appealed to the French in Syria, pointing out that their only chance of avoiding Italian or German occupation is to follow the example of French Equatorial Africa and the French Camcroons in rallying to the cause of Free France under General de Gaulle. He said that the Italian Armistice Commission was using pressure on the High Commissioner in Syria to have most of the French aircraft taken away. If that happened Syria would be at .the mercy of air attacks from the Dodecanese Islands and invasion by land forces.

A Reuter report from Cairo says that the Italian demands include the taking over rtf all Syrian air bases and the total demobilisation of the French colonial army and repatriation of the men. Local Syrians and Arabs are showing increasing resentment at these demands. German concern over the situation among the Arabs is shown by the fact that they have allowed Radio Lyons to lengthen its broadcast in Arabic by two horn's daily.