A report from Smyrna, Turkey, carried by the New York Times today states that Palestine, Syria, Cyprus and Turkey are believed to be safe from Axis aggression this autumn and early winter because the German and Italian troops have been withdrawn from the Aegean Islands.
“Allied military and naval circles say the enemy committed their gravest error since the German failure to attempt an invasion of Britain following the collapse of France in the summer of 1940 when the Germans and Italians failed last May to attack the week defenses of Syria and Palestine simultaneously with their Libyan offensive,” the report states. “Only the Turks were ready last May and an operation aimed across Syria at Iraq’s oil and into Palestine to sever Allied communications was feasible, according to leading foreign military experts. Fewer than twenty divisions would have sufficed to give the Germans a critical, perhaps fatal, foothold in Syria and Palestine and perhaps even in Cypress whose defenses early last spring were something that Allied military air exports would rather not talk about.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
