Description
Extraordinary postal links - airmail from IRAQ: 25 Nov 1951 postmarked air mail cover sent from BAGHDAD to addressee Dr. A. Rushdy at poste restante address in GENEVA Switzerland (the mail is held for the addressee at the post office until he comes to pick it up); franked 43 Fils on back & tied by 3x strikes of the local postmark; backstamped 29 Nov. GENEVA POSTE RESTANTE arrival - but the addressee evidentally moved and left rerouting instructions beforehand, so the address was updated to a post office box address in NAHARIYA Israel to which it was forwarded, front-stamped next day dispatch from the Poste Restant department - and received in Israel, as backstamped 4 Dec 1951 NAHARIYA-3 arrival.
Unlike some other countries, poste restante service in Switzerland is free of charge, so the cover was not taxed for this service. Likewise the fast transit time to Israel indicates airmail transmission, which would ordinarily have required additional postage as per UPU regulations reforwarded mail is usually transmitted by default mail service, which is surface mail. Cut open at left - but the missing portion is narrow enough to reveal that the cover was not censored - opened and resesealed by the Israeli censor.
As the cover is not double-addressed or addressed to a mail forwarding service like Thomas Cook in the UK or the Cyprus head postmaster, or to a covert post office box for mail forwarding (like #152 in Geneva), and does not bear a "please forward" endorsement, this is a genuinely rerouted mail item from an Arab country and not refused service by Israel (a circumstance not to be taken for granted: an inverse example in Daryl Kibble's collection, from Israel to Germany, reforwarded to Egypt was refused service in Egypt owing to its Israeli origin). Iraq suspended postal relations with Palestine in 1948 and was a party to the Arab postal boycott of Israel. The addressee may be related to Abu Rushdi, the founder of the large Rushdi food manufacturing company based in Afula.
