Jabotinsky courted Mussolini in 1922 by offering Jewish help for Italian linguistic dominance

Evidence

Jabotinsky, however, did send Mussolini a letter in which he tried to win his support for the Zionist cause. Jabotinsky started the letter rather strangely, declaring that he was aware of Mussolini’s opposition to Zionism and that therefore Jabotinsky assumed that they were enemies. Jabotinsky then turned to his main point, trying to convince Mussolini to abandon his pan-Arabic policy, with a mostly linguistic and cultural argument. Jabotinsky claimed that only a strong Jewish presence along the Mediterranean could insure the hegemony of the Italian language in the region. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 570

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: was this role reversal of enemy-Jew-as-ally a genuine diplomatic overture or a negotiating ploy tailored to flatter Mussolini’s own language anxieties?