Holy War

To the high imams of the fanatical Shiah sect of Iraq's Moslems went recently a request for a fatwa--an ecclesiastical ruling. Asked by the Society for the Defense of Palestine to determine whether Iraqis should engage in a jihad--holy war --for their Arab brothers in Palestine, the ecclesiastics of Iraq's holy cities pondered over their Koran, read the Moslem traditions, looked into precedents, ruled last week that according to the words of the Prophet a jihad was called for.

To Britain that fatwa was potentially a more serious matter than any ten or twelve riots in Palestine. For it meant that a contagious form of disturbance had escaped from quarantine in Palestine. Iraq, with the oil fields of Mosul and Kirkuk, is definitely a British sphere of influence, and beyond it lie other British areas with large Moslem populations, subject to the same contagion.

Iraq's 2,857,077 inhabitants are 93% Moslem, and it is regarded as the cradle of fanatical Shiahism. A wide majority of the illiterate population are Shiites but even the literate Government clique--including youthful King Ghazi, who belongs to the opposed Sunnite sect--sympathize with the Arabs of Palestine. Anti-Jewish propaganda is, in the circumstances, anti-British propaganda. Last spring both Sunnites and Shiites relished a poster depicting John Bull holding a pair of scales in which an Arab, an Indian and a Negro in one tray were outweighed by a fat, long-nosed Jew.

Young Iraqis of both sects obeyed the imams' ruling last week by rushing to conscription offices in hot, dirty, dusty Bagdad to offer themselves or their money for the jihad. Although Iraq's western boundary is separated from Palestine by 200 miles of British-mandated Trans- Jordan, British officers foresaw that friendly Bedouins would soon be leading Iraq raiders across the desert into Palestine. Meanwhile, in Palestine itself, twelve Arab terrorists replenished their none-too-full coffers by a new type of coup. In a daylight robbery of a branch Barclays Bank at Nablus, they obtained $25,000.

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In London, while Arabs were appealing to Allah for aid, British Colonial Secretary Malcolm MacDonald also appealed to Jehovah. He announced: "With God's help, peace will be restored to the Holy Land."

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