Several times over the course of World War II, the Wehrmacht came dangerously close to overrunning the borders of Mandatory Palestine. In a new book, Gershon Gorenberg tells the story of Britain’s clandestine efforts to keep Hitler’s forces out of the Middle East. Amy Spiro writes:

As [Gorenberg] recounts in the 482-page book, there were moments in the early years of the war when “very suddenly it seemed that the Nazis could come from the west through Egypt, or the north through Syria, or from the air,” bringing them straight to the borders of Mandatory Palestine and its hundreds of thousands of Jews.

At the heart of [the book] are the men and women who spent the war not on the battlefront, but far in the background, tracing, intercepting, and cracking encrypted messages to gather the intelligence that enabled Allied forces to halt the Nazi invasion of the Middle East. Much of the action in the book focuses on Bletchley Park, a sprawling mansion in the English countryside that housed the top-secret British efforts to seize and decode Nazi missives.

It is not widely known, Gorenberg posited, “the extent to which people during that period really expected the Nazis to invade at any moment.”

Gorenberg’s book is chock-full of stories and anecdotes that may come as a surprise even to avid consumers of history of both World War II and the Middle East. In 1940, for example, Italy carried out a series of bombing raids on Tel Aviv and Haifa, killing more than 200 people. And the former IDF chief of staff Moshe Dayan received his iconic eye patch after losing his sight in a 1941 battle against Vichy French forces in Lebanon.

Considering the current state of Israel-Arab relations, Ghaith al-Omari writes

First and foremost, no ceasefire will be possible without the release of Israeli hostages and commitments to disarm Hamas and remove it from power. The final say on these matters rests with Hamas commanders on the ground in Gaza, who have been largely impervious to foreign pressure so far. At minimum, however, the United States should insist that Qatari and Egyptian mediators push Hamas’s external leadership to accept these conditions publicly, which could increase pressure on the group’s Gaza leadership.

Washington should also demand a clear, public position from key Arab states regarding disarmament. The Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas endorsed this position in a June letter to Saudi Arabia and France, giving Arab states Palestinian cover for endorsing it themselves.

Some Arab states have already indicated a willingness to play a significant role, but they will have little incentive to commit resources and personnel to Gaza unless Israel (1) provides guarantees that it will not occupy the Strip indefinitely, and (2) removes its veto on a PA role in Gaza’s future, even if only symbolic at first. Arab officials are also seeking assurances that any role they play in Gaza will be in the context of a wider effort to reach a two-state solution.

On the other hand, Washington must remain mindful that current conditions between Israel and the Palestinians are not remotely conducive to . . . implementing a two-state solution.