As I tell my students (the good Mr. Gold included!) - most leaders were at least a bit Italian fascism curious during the Interwar. From artistic and movement aesthetics to economic and political corporatism and beyond. Note this does not apply for the regime north of the Alps.

Don’t be mislead by @jonfiner and @PhilGordonDC. They’re both seasoned sanctions practitioners. They know full well that the economic and financial warfare they’re advocating against Israel won’t stop at the Green Line. It will hit banks, businesses and all Israelis inside Israel itself. Their mission is clear: coerce Israelis into accepting a Palestinian state—even if it is highly likely it will be controlled by Hamas, riddled with corruption, and posing a mortal threat to Israel’s security. They have learned nothing from October 7 and the failed territorial withdrawals of the past.

Arab women would satisfy their sexual desires using available sex toys or ones custom-made by artisans upon request. The Arabic dictionaries refer to this instrument as al-Akranbaj or al-Kīranj (الكيرنج/الأكرنبج), with the plural form al-Kīranjāt (الكيرنجات). It is known today as a the Dildo. Women who could not find someone to make one for them would use a Qiththāʾ (قثاء), a long cucumber-like gourd, known in the colloquial dialects of some countries as Ṭaraḥ (طرح). Abū al-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī mentioned in his Kitāb al-Aghānī, on the authority of Zarqān, who reported from his father: (Vol. 1, p. 179). “I encountered an elderly client of ʿUmar ibn Abī Rabīʿah and said to him, ‘Tell me an unusual story about ʿUmar.’ He replied, ‘Certainly. One day, I was with him when a group of Umayyad slave girls who had performed the pilgrimage passed by. He approached them, struck up a conversation with them, and continued courting them throughout the days of the pilgrimage. One of them eventually said to him, “Abū al-Khaṭṭāb, we are departing tomorrow. Send your client here to our residence, and we shall give him a keepsake for you to remember us by.” He was delighted and sent me to them at dawn. I found them preparing to mount their rides. They said to an elderly woman accompanying them, “So-and-so, give the client of Abū al-Khaṭṭāb the keepsake we presented to him.” She brought out a small, locked and sealed chest. They told me to deliver it to him, and then they departed. I brought it to ʿUmar, assuming that it contained perfume or jewels. When ʿUmar opened it, he found it filled with al-maḍārib—that is, al-kīranjāt (Dildos). Each one bore the name of a man renowned for libertinism in Mecca. Two of them were particularly large, and one bore the name of ʿUmar ibn Abī Rabīʿah. He laughed and said, “They have played a lewd prank on me, and I shall return the favor!” He then prepared a banquet and invited every man whose name appeared on those objects. When they had eaten and settled comfortably, he said, “Bring me that deposit, boy!” I brought him the chest. He opened it and handed one of the men the kīranj bearing his name. When the man took it and uncovered it, he recoiled in horror and exclaimed, “May God disgrace you! What is this?” “Easy,” ʿUmar replied. “Be patient until you see.” He then took them out one by one and handed each object to the man whose name it bore, until he had distributed them all. Finally, he took out the one bearing his own name and said, “This one is mine.” They exclaimed, “Damn you! What is this?” He told them the story, and they were astonished. They continued joking about the incident for a very long time, laughing about it for years to come.’” Perhaps the earliest mention of an artificial penis appears in a work by al-Jāḥiẓ (776–868 CE), Mufākharat al-Jawārī wa-l-Ghilmān (The Boasting Contest between Slave Girls and Boys), Epistle 13: كانت بالمدينة امرأة ماجنة يقال لها سلامة الخضراء ، فأخذت مع مخنث وهي تنيكه بكيرنج ، فرفعت الى الوالي فأوجعها ضربا وطاف بها على جمل ، فنظر اليها رجل يعرفها فقال: ما هذا يا سلامة ؟ فقالت : اسكت ، ما في الدنيا أظلم من الرجال ، أنتم تنيكونا الدهر كله فلما نكناكم مرة واحدة قتلتمونا. “There was a licentious woman in Medina known as Salāma al-Khaḍrāʾ. She was caught with a mukhannath (effeminate man) while she was penetrating him with a kīranj (Dildo). She was brought before the governor, who had her severely beaten and paraded around on a camel. A man who knew her saw her and asked: ‘What is this, Salāma?’ She replied, ‘Be quiet! There is nothing in this world more unjust than men. You penetrate us all the time, but when we penetrate you just once, you kill us!’” (Page of Kitāb al-Aghānī)

It pains me to post anything that risks flattering Iranians but Persian really is just an incomparable delight in the ear and on the tongue and I think this is why elites all over a global neighborhood fell for it for centuries. Irrestible to human physiology like sugar.