Asmahan: Arabic singer, Druze princess, Egyptian film star, spy and temptress of the wartime King David Hotel. Was she murdered? She was the Marilyn Monroe of the Arab world. (illustration credit ill.66)

(illustration credit ill.67)

Above left The Mufti Amin al-Husseini meets Hitler, who admired his fair hair and blue eyes. His cousin, Abd al-Kadir Husseini (above right), was an aristocratic warrior and Arab hero of 1947–48, whose death was a blow to Palestinian hopes. His funeral on the Temple Mount (below) was a chaotic, tense occasion: some mourners were killed by guns fired in the air.

(illustration credit ill.68)

1946–48: As Arabs and Jews massacred each other’s civilians, Menachem Begin’s Irgun bombed British headquarters in the King David Hotel. British General Evelyn “Bubbles” Barker (left, bottom right on newspaper) already loathed the Jews, encouraged by his charming, exuberant mistress, the leading Palestinian hostess Katy Antonius (right). (illustration credit ill.69)

The battle of Jerusalem in 1948. (illustration credit ill.69a)

Arab soldiers escorting a Jewish prisoner during the fight for the Jewish Quarter (left); a Jewish girl fleeing from the fighting (right). (illustration credit ill.70)