Word: khamsin
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Irrational Behavior. Santa Ana-like phenomena are not confined to Southern California. Similar hot, dry wind sweeping down mountain slopes is called "foehn" (pronounced, approximately, fain) in Austria and Germany, "chinook" along the U.S. and Canadian Rockies, "sky sweeper" on Majorca, "khamsin" in Israel, and "the Canterbury northwester" in New Zealand...
...blow, the winds stir strange human actions. In Munich, as in Los Angeles, most residents are convinced that the foehn causes general lassitude, irrational behavior, suicides and an increase in crime. Israelis swear that headaches, asthma, high blood pressure, mental aberrations and other assorted ills are accentuated during the khamsin. In Sicily and some Arab nations, courts have considered the hot, dry winds as mitigating circumstances for those accused of crimes committed while they blow...
...khamsin is a baleful wind that flares out of the deserts, drying out the land and the people until the flesh fairly crackles. Under Ottoman Empire law, murder was held more pardonable if committed while the khamsin was blowing. Last week, as Jerusalem suffered under the worst khamsin since 1893, tempers and guns blazed along Israel's borders. In the thick of it were U.N. observers, who, without arms, are instructed to keep the peace...
Celebrating its third anniversary, Israel showed off its tough little army last week. Through Jerusalem, scorched by a fierce sun and blistering Khamsin (desert wind) which prostrated dozens of marchers, rumbled Sherman tanks, armored cars and heavy artillery, in a brief violation of the 1949 armistice agreement demilitarizing the Holy City...
This time he sent the veteran Eighth Army against the very face of the Matmatas. The khamsin, the hot African wind, filled the air with the sands of the Sahara. Through the thick of it roared his planes. The mountains thundered and echoed with his artillery barrage. His infantrymen, like the point of a crowbar, jabbed into Rommel's suddenly faltering defenses. Montgomery's armor poured through, levering the crack until it was a wide and shattered hole. The Mareth Line, southern bulwark of the whole Axis position in Tunisia, collapsed. This week Rommel retreated...