The diplomatic correspondent of the liberal Manchester Guardian said today he had learned from well-informed sources that “Italians had made attempts at recruiting among natives in Libya for the Arab cause in Palestine.”
“The plan was to form a number of armed guerrilla troops,” he continued, “who should cross the frontier into Palestine with the help of the Italian authorities. These attempts have not been very successful. Failure was due partly to the natives’ fear they might not be able to evade British troops who are carefully watching the frontiers, and partly to their distrust of Italian intentions. Some natives, it is said, thought their true destination might not be Palestine, but Spain. Only among the poorer classes of Bedouins in the center of Libya have these Italian plans had any success.”
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