At the "Conference for Peace and Reclamation," held in Erbil and organized by the New York-based Center for Peace Communications, over 300 participants called for Iraq to join the Abraham Accords and to make peace with Israel, a country it has been officially at war with since 1948.
Reaction was swift.
Iraq’s federal government on Saturday rejected the conference as an “illegal meeting.”
Today, Iraq started issuing arrest warrants against participants.
Already, one prominent participant, Wisam al Hardan, has disowned the statement he signed, claiming he didn't read it carefully - even though he had written an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal on Friday calling for Iraq to join the Abraham Accords. He is clearly frightened of being arrested and tortured for violating Iraqi laws against "normalization" with Israel.
Now we can find out how consistent "human rights activists" who are critical of Israel will be.
Will Human Rights Watch, Amnesty and Oxfam condemn these arrests as a gross violation of freedom of expression? Will these group defend the participants and their right to call for peace between Iraq and Israel?
My guess is that they will either be silent, or (if shamed) they will issue a tiny, perfunctory statement of "concern." But you will not find a full throated defense of these participants or a condemnation of Iraq's laws against promoting "Zionist values."
