The Haj - Leon Uris [44]
Gideon Asch went to war. The British traded on his unique background with the Arabs and his knowledge of the Mufti and put him on the mission of trailing Haj Amin al Heusseini. The Mufti, having fled Damascus early in the war to the safer grounds of Baghdad, was able to create new mischief as strong pro-German factions in the Iraqi military plotted to gain control of the government, weakly run by a young regent.
Gideon Asch was white-haired and white-bearded and by dress and mastery of the language was able to pass quite easily as an Arab. Near the Mustansiriya College, perhaps the oldest university in the world, he established an excellent espionage ring using Iraqi Jews as its heart. He purchased a number of Iraqis in key government and military positions.
The moment that mainland France fell, the war was suddenly and terrifyingly dumped on Palestine’s doorstep. Most French possessions were seized by the new Vichy government, which collaborated with the Nazis. In an instant Syria and Lebanon were in pro-German hands and the issue in Iraq hung in the balance.
In North Africa, a second menace loomed against Palestine. The great Western Desert straddled the borders of Egypt and Libya, where the Italians had amassed a vast army—over three hundred thousand men—with the ultimate mission of crossing the desert and conquering Egypt, the Suez Canal, and Palestine.
Although the British were outnumbered by ten to one, they audaciously went into an offensive that chewed up the Italians and bagged tens of thousands of prisoners and took them deep into Libya.
Once again Hitler had to rush to his partner’s rescue. Early in 1941 a young German general named Erwin Rommel landed in Tripoli, Libya, and with a highly mechanized force known as the Afrika Korps won back the territory the Italians had lost. Rommel stopped at the Egyptian border to regroup because of an overextended supply line.
But Palestine was in a nutcracker from the east and west.
Although the British had been badly bashed about, they reached deep and scraped together a force of Australian, Indian, and Free French brigades and launched an invasion of Syria and Lebanon from Palestine. This was led by units of Jewish scouts, most of whom had served in Orde Wingate’s Special Night Squads and all of whom had been under Gideon Asch’s command at one time or another. This expedition flowed on a stream of intelligence supplied by Gideon Asch’s unit in Baghdad and other Jewish espionage units that had been planted earlier.
At the same moment in Iraq, a pro-German faction seized control of the government. A hastily assembled British force stormed ashore at Iraq’s only seaport, Basra, on the Persian Gulf—the port of Sinbad, his seven voyages, and A Thousand and One Nights. Basra was several hundred miles from Baghdad, so a second force from Palestine rushed overland, again guided by Gideon Asch’s intelligence.
As the British reached sight of Baghdad the pro-Nazi Iraqis turned maniacal and at the last moment tore into the Jewish ghetto of the city. Four hundred Jewish men, women, and children were slaughtered. Gideon Asch was betrayed by a turncoat saving his own neck and was dragged off to be tortured. When the British broke into the city a frenzied Iraqi colonel chopped off Gideon’s left hand. His war was done.
Haj Amin al Heusseini fled Baghdad, this time to neighboring Iran, a country floundering politically under the twenty-two-year old Shah. The British quickly marched into the country to secure it. As they did, the Japanese granted the Mufti asylum in their embassy in Teheran and later slipped him out of the country. Haj Amin al Heusseini surfaced again in Berlin. He spent the balance of the war broadcasting to the Arab world on behalf of the Nazis. He was also instrumental in helping to form a division of Yugoslavian Moslems who fought alongside the Germans.
With the successful occupation of Iraq,