80
paganda was made to subject these young people to discipline, to interest
them in organized sport and physical training, and to teach them how to
use firearms. Until quite recently, Iraqi Jews had had very few firearms,
but now a considerable number were well armed, having paid high prices
for their weapons.^43
The relationship between British security and Iraqi Zionism was in fact
highly nuanced, for the man chosen to coordinate Zionist efforts in Iraq
was in fact an SOE officer who had been working for British intelligence in
Egypt since September 1940. When Cudbert Thornhill began to imple-
ment some of the ideas that he and Freya Stark had proposed in August
1940 for propaganda operations against Italian fascism, he turned to a
revered and highly talented Italian-Palestinian socialist with a doctorate in
philosophy from the University of Rome named Enzo Sereni (1905–1944),
who had founded the Givat Brenner kibbutz near Rehovot in 1928, when
he was only 23 years of age (Fig. 4.2). After initial screening by Roy Strange
(D/H.278), Thornhill gave Sereni the SOE cover identity of ‘Dr. Frederic
Simmons’ and put him to work writing for the Giornale d’Italia, the anti-
fascist newspaper with which SOE had been targeting the fascist Italian
Fig. 4.2 Enzo Sereni,
SOE officer and Zionist
emissary. Source:
D2-009, The National
Photo Collection of
Israel, Government Press
Office, State of Israel