The Mussolini Government is seeking Spanish support for Italian claims to Palestine now being advanced by the Italian propaganda organization, reports from Madrid disclose.
Official Italian wireless transmissions in the Spanish language stress the importance to the Catholic Church of Italian possession of the Holy Land and Church control of the Holy places, which, according to the Italian broadcasts, would follow.
In a recent broadcast to Spain, the Italian announcer argued the common interdependence of both Italy and the Catholic Church upon supremacy in the Mediterranean. Fascist supremacy in the Mediterranean, the announcer declared, requires possession of Jerusalem as does the Catholic Church “in order to fulfill its spiritual mission.”
The move to enlist Spanish support for Italian claims in the Eastern Mediterranean follows a widespread campaign in Italy aimed to prove Italian right to rule the Holy Land. The Italian press has published details plans for the future of Palestine after a successful conclusion of the war, involving the setting up of a local Arab government under Italian control, deportation of the Jews and administration of the Holy Places by the Vatican.
Nothing has been said of this in the Italian broadcasts to the Near East in Arabic. In these. British-Jewish “repression” of the Arabs is stressed and the Arabs are told that they ought to be independent and that Palestine should be a free Arab state.
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