Second episode. I hope you like it. 

Let’s start with today’s story, a story I like to tell many times but I haven’t written about it. I was reminded of this story as a result of the exhibt of a colleague of mine, that of Menachem Lador talking about secret services, another fascinating topic. And here's a link to his display. During a war, there is often an attempt to undermine the morale of the citizens so that they put pressure on their government to end a war. The term is called demoralization. This is usually the case in a war of attrition.

Demoralization is not a new phenomenon and during World War II, both the Allies and the Axis Powers used tactics to try and undermine the morale of citizens. One covert operation created by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the American spy agency during World War II that later became the CIA, became known as "Operation Cornflakes." Sounds delicious, doesn't it? A Kellogg's campaign during which you get a knock on the door in the morning and someone hands you a bowl of cornflakes? Well, it's not.

One of the stamps, issued by the Germans was the Hitler head series. So what did the OSS do? They took the stamps (specific values and you will soon understand why) and forged them! Instead of the usual Hitler head, the fakes showed Hitler's head as a skull or "death head." One of the stamps printed the name of the country as "Futsches Reich" which means "ruined empire" instead of "Deutches Reich".

With permission from SGM Herbert A. Friedman

Just as matter of interest, it is documented that Hitler was paid to be able to use his portrait on postage stamps. It was paid for by something called a Cultural Fund. This is also where he was paid the money from hi book, "Mein Kampf"

Our OSS friends led by General "Wild Bill" Donovan, had to learn everything about the German postal service. So what did they do? German Prisoners of War who were former postal workers, were interrogated on every slither of information, from the postage stamps to methods of packing and sealing mailbags. For this work, they received benefits like tastier meals and so on. Anti-Nazi spies and residents, collected samples of cancellers, postage stamps, mailbags and envelopes. They even took German phone books with addresses of the residents. Today with our smartphones, who remembers the piles of phone books next to our telephone that was connected to a wall!

Now they have addresses, fake stamps, mailbags, knowledge of methods, so what's the next step? Writing the letters themselves. The letters were written, full of anti-Nazi propaganda, to as many citizens as possible, using the forged stamp and fake postmark. In each letter they placed the Hitler skull parody stamp. But they then encountered a problem. Without asking anyone, and without informing the OSS, the Germans changed the laws and only allowed mail from legitimate businesses. No problem, the sender's address will carry the addresses of legitimate businesses that they of course took from the phone number. In the interim they duplicated the mail bags and every other detail of the German postal service. What an operation.
What is interesting about the story is that the items are relatively difficult to obtain, and therefore there are forgeries on the parody, so you need a certificate to show that it is genuine. Can you imagine a forgery of the forgery? Before you start looking for letters like, remember one thing, the stamps on the letters were not the ones with the skull because people would immediately recognize that it was not real, but most of the time they were inside the letter with the propaganda page. Remember, this is black propaganda!

No one knows how successful the operation was but at least it gave us something to enjoy. The story is based on an article by another colleague of mine. And here's a link.

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Our story began 100 years ago when as you know, in 1917, during WW1, a British General named Edmund Allenby, managed to drive out the last Turkish occupation forces from our area, thus ending 400 years of occupation. He commanded a military force known as the Egyptian Expeditionary Force or EEF; remember that name because we will get back to it soon. The force was established the previous year, specifically for the invasion of Sinai and Palestine.

We will not go into various historical details but we will talk about interesting aspect. With the Turks out, the British became the new occupiers and both soldiers and civilians were living in the Holy Land, and of course people wanted to send messages out. Since there were no emails in 1917, they had to write letters. But they had no stamps; the Turks had been driven out. So what were they going to do? Simple, use the stamps already used by the armed forces, the EEF stamps. These stamps were in use since the establishment of the force. After the League of Nations gave the British the mandate to prepare our area for the Jewish state, General Allenby transferred the administration to the representative of the British government, the High Commissioner to Palestine, Lord Herbert Samuel. Lord Herbert Samuel arrived in Palestine in 1920, that is, a hundred years ago.

Now things are starting to get complicated. Herbert Samuel saw that there was no indication on the stamps to show that the letter had been sent from Palestine and that, of course, was inappropriate. So he decided to add on overprint on the stamp itself. After consultations, Herbert Samuel decided that the overprint would be in three languages, Hebrew, English and Arabic! The word Palestine in three languages! Houston, we have a problem, the Jews wanted the Land of Israel to be used and not Palestine, their claim was that the territory was promised to them, not only in the Balfour Declaration but also in the San Remo Agreement. The Arabs objected because it was a political statement. 

Does the story end here? It's a good place to end but unfortunately it doesn’t. Why unfortunately and here we have an historical distortion. In 2018 the Palestinian Authority, which had decided to issue stamps with the name, the State of Palestine, issued a stamp for "100 years since the first Palestinian stamp" and the stamp depicted the high value of the original EEF stamp. And here's the issue, in the official declaration of the issue and the First Day Cover, instead of the correct interpretation of the letters EEF, they called it Education, Endowment and Foundation, the same letters but changed them without any historical basis. And in which printing house were the stamps printed? The official printing company of Bahrain, our new buddies. A little birdie told me that the Palestinian Authority was so angry with Bahrain as a result of their peace agreement with us that they demanded that the PA stamps would no longer be printed in Bahrain, but at a local printing house. They were getting the printing for free, now you are going to pay for it.

Going back to the matter of distorting historical information and you're probably asking, as I was asked, who cares? Distortions in stamp catalogs and articles refer to stamps as a historical tool. So you're probably asking yourself again who cares and if so, I suggest you read George Orwell's "1984" book.

Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped.

Here are three stamps with a common denominator.

The first stamp, from Iran, was released in Iran for Al Quds Day, during the First Intifada. Intifada is an Arabic word literally meaning, as a noun, "tremor", "shivering", "shuddering". It is derived from an Arabic term nafada meaning "to shake", "shake off", "get rid of". In contemporary Arabic usage, an intifada is a rebellion or uprising, or a resistance movement referring to a legitimate uprising against oppression.

The First Intifada began on the 9th December, 1987. The day before, a driver of a huge truck was driving north on the Gaza highway and allegedly swerved his semi-trailer into the oncoming traffic at the Erez Checkpoint fuel station. The resulting crash involved a car and a truck, both were taking Arab workers back to their homes. 4 Arabs were killed and ten wounded. Rumors circulated that the driver intended to kill Arabs following the death earlier of Shlomo Sakal, an Israeli victim of a terrorist attack. Bocovza denied this claiming that he was trying to turn into the fuel station. The following day riots broke out at the funeral of one of the victims. During the riot, one Arab was killed and many others wounded. As a result, the riots quickly spread throughout Gaza and the West Bank.

What is Al Quds Day, you ask? Well, the Ayatollah Khomeini announced that the last Friday in the month of Ramadan would be recognized as the Day Calling for the Liberation of Jerusalem from the little Satan, that is, Israel.

What can you see in the stamp, an Arab, probably a young man because that's how they sold the Intifada to the world, standing in front of an Israeli tank. You can see the Israeli flag hoisted on the tank. This young man was throwing a stone using a slingshot. Somehow the tank caught fire from the stones.

This Intifada was called the Stone Intifada. The Second Intifada was the Al Aksa Intifada and the Third Intifada was Knives Intifada. It must be clear to everyone that the stone did not cause the tank to catch fire.

The second stamp was issued by Iraq for the Second Intifada, called the Al Aksa Intifada , and the Iraqis called it the Liberation Uprising. This intifada began following Prime Minister Ehud Barak to PLO leader Yassir Arafat and Arafat's refusal to accept it.


Now what can you see in the stamp? Once again we an Arab, but this time it is clear that he is a young man and he is throwing a stone in the direction of a tank, this time without the slingshot. What damage the stone would have done to the tank, I do not know.

What is missing in the stamp? The Al-Aqsa Mosque! The stamp instead shows the Omar Mosque, i.e. the Dome of the Rock. And why? Because with all due respect to the "holiness" of the Al Aqsa Mosque, it is not very eye-catching.

The third stamp completes this short story, and was also issued for the Al Aqsa Intifada. It is a beautiful and very eye catching stamp. A young Arab boy throws a stone at a tank but there is also the Omar Mosque (not al-Aqsa) and a barbed wire fence. The barbed wire fence for Jerusalem is a typical motif in Arab stamps depicting Jerusalem, but this is the first time seen in a stamp from Oman.



The stamp is in black, meaning the color of death. Blood dripping from above. Here the Al Aqsa Intifada is clearly stated. In terms of propaganda I mentioned this in an earlier blog.

So what do they have in common and it is not accidental apart from the fact that they were issued for Intifadas? The Arab propaganda movement wanted to show themselves as the David in front of the Jewish Goliath and they wanted to draw your attention to the equality of their struggle to the struggle of the student in China in Tinaman Square who stood in front of a tank and did not move.