The Palestine Regiment...

[Violet_Crumble]

How an Arab and a Jew fought Hitler, then each other, and died as friends

by Robert Fisk
UK Independent
November 11, 2003

No one remembers the Palestine Regiment. Even this morning, on the actual day of remembrance, few will recall that Arab and Jew once fought together under the British flag against Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Even fewer will know the extraordinary story of an Arab and a Jew who fought side by side against Hitler, and then twice fought each other as enemy combatants - in 1948 and 1967 - and of how, in their declining years, they became friends. But in a Middle East in which "hawks" and "doves" and "terrorists" and "security forces" battle to the death, their story provides an extraordinary - and shaming - indictment of both Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat.

Hazim Khalidi was at the London School of Economics when the Second World War broke out. He volunteered to join the British Army, but was attached to the Indian army's "Palestine Battalion". "They weren't going to have an Arab as a British officer - things were somewhat racist then,' Khalidi's son Sa'ad says today. "But he was attached to the East Kent Regiment, the 'Buffs', and posted to Syria, where he worked with the British brigadier-general Sir Edward Spears, and General Charles de Gaulle.'

Khalidi also became a good friend of a young British intelligence officer in Beirut, Quintin Hogg - later Lord Hailsham of St Marylebone - before the battalion was turned into the Palestine Regiment with 14 companies. Among its soldiers was a young Jewish Palestinian, Uzi Narkiss. Both men were posted to support the Poles and the Eighth Army in Libya, and in their battle with the Afrika Korps in 1942.

Arab and Jewish dead lie today in the El Alamein war cemetery. But within months the Haganah, which was to form part of a future Israeli army, infiltrated the regiment and persuaded its Jewish servicemen - angry that they had not seen more action against the Germans - to replace the Union Jack over their camp with the Star of David. The British called it the "Flag Mutiny' and disbanded the Palestine Regiment. Most of the Arabs drifted back to Palestine. The Jewish part of the regiment became the Jewish Brigade of the British Army and fought in Italy.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=22&ItemID=4507

[bluesoul]

1. Nice!

:toast: :bounce: :toast:

[Paschall]

2. Thanks for the post

The Jewish Brigade did much more than fight in Italy.

Just saw a documentary on the tube about the brigade. I think it was this one:
"In Our Own Hands: The Hidden Story of the Jewish Brigade in World War II"
http://www.jewishsf.com/bk000421/etbrigade.shtml

Besides the facts related at that link, the Brigade also managed to seize German documents that allowed them to identify Nazi war criminals, who they tracked relentlessly across Europe and eliminated at gunpoint.

Here's more
http://www.jewishpost.com/jp0606/jpn0606b.htm