Italian Broadcasts in Arabic Colored with Anti-jewish Allusions

The pro-Italian, anti-British propaganda broadcast in Arabic by the Bari radio station in Italy for consumption in the Near East has been flavored with anti-Jewish material, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency has learned. In the recent Bari Arabic programs, translated by the J.T.A., there were many allusions to Great Britain as the oppressor and Italy as the savior of the Arabs, and one containing extensive denunciation of the Jews and of Zionism.

This was an account of an interview granted by Emir Shekib Arslan, Palestine Arab nationalist leader, to the Geneva correspondent of the Italian newspaper, El Messagero, broadcast Dec. 30. The Emir was quoted as having stated that “had the English told the Arabs that they intended to bring into Palestine thousands of Jews and to create a Jewish State, the Arabs would never have abandoned the Turks and gone over to the Allies.”

Referring to English promises to safeguard Arab rights in Palestine, Emir Arslan was reported by the radio to have said: “The only proof that the Arabs had of this English intention was that tens of thousands of Jews were brought into Palestine as a justification for the creation of a Jewish State, which fits in with British imperial policy. But the English must remember that they cannot master the Arabs. The Arabs number seventy million, dwelling near the Suez Canal and the Red Sea. If they could have their way, in the future they would fight on Italy’s side.”

Emir Arslan was further quoted as saying that the Islamic congress in Geneva adopted a vote opposing the “Judaising of Palestine.” Zionism, he was reported to have said, is “the agent of Communism.”

“Zionist immigrants,” the broadcast version of the interview continued, “are engaged in Communist propaganda and are trying to harness the Arabs to the Communist doctrine.”

The anti-British note in the broadcasts is very prominent. Phrases such as “the Arabs who suffer from British exploitation” are common. The Italian point of view is, of course, strongly stressed. Italy’s befriending of the Moslems in Ethiopia after her conquest of that country is mentioned continually.

The Bari broadcasts are beyond doubt the most popular radio entertainment among Arabs in Palestine, and probably throughout the Near East. They are couched in colloquial Arabic, easy for the fellahin to understand. The only other stations broadcast regularly in Arabic have been at Cairo and Jerusalem. The Jerusalem station, operated by the Government, confines its news to Arabic translations of the reports of the official British news agency. Their style is not the colorful one designed to catch the Arab fancy, characteristic of Bari.

Ironically, the hundreds of radio sets supplied without cost by the Palestine government to Arab villages, so that the inhabitants might tune in the Jerusalem broadcasts, are used principally for listening to Bari.