75 years ago: A survey of Arab persecution of Jews

This article was published in August, 1947 in the Edmonton Journal:

Life Of Jews In Arab Lands 

By Gerold Frank 

JERUSALEM - The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, now deliberating at Geneva, may ponder the true situation of Jews in Arab states—their treatment, discrimination against them, the entire suffocating framework in which the average Jew finds himself. 

Arab spokesmen. seeking to prove the idyllic status of a Jewish minority in the independent Arab Palestine they demand, are always ready to point out the general lack of anti-Jewish laws on the books in the Arab States. But there is a long step between statute and practice. The fact is that the lives of Jews in all Arab states range from generally unenviable to intolerable; from Egypt where the situation of Jews, many of whom are wealthy, is comparatively the best, to Yemen. a backward country where the Jews are the lowest of the low. 

It must be remembered that religion in the Middle East is a much more divisive factor than ,in the West, Religion is the basis of social mores: communities are religious communities. Fear, suspicion and hate have deep roots. Add to this the fact that Jews in Arab lands are mainly in commercial pursuits, vulnerable economically and subject to envy if successful; add also the nationalistic propaganda and anti-Zionist movements, and one better understands the Jewish plight. 

Take the roll-call of countries. 

First, Iraq. Here is the largest Jewish population of any Arab state-130,000 Jews out of 4.000,000 inhabitants. Of the Jewish total, 100,000 live in Bagdad. There were frightful pogroms in Bagdad in June. 1941. The temper of the Iraqi was best expressed by Pedal Jamaili, minister of foreign affairs. who declared, according to the Iraqi Times of March 3, 1946. "The problem of i protecting the Jews of Iraq when disturbances occur in Palestine often is a cause of anxiety and restlessness in Iraq. No Iraq government can for long maintain peace and quiet unless justice is rendered the Arabs of Palestine." This last sentence may not constitute official incitement, but it comes suspiciously close to it. 

Today, Iraq Jews are unable to  leave the country on the grounds that they might go to Palestine. When a Jew can leave—a medical student, for example—he must pay 2,000 dinars ($8.000) as warrant for his return and his passport is stamped "not valid for Palestine." In Iraq. anti-Jewish laws are kept off the records. but Iraq's raw materials are not currently permitted to be exported to Palestine; the government has begun a boycott of the Haifa port by insisting that exporters send their goods to Europe through Beirut. in the Lebanon. There is a campaign of vilification against Jewish merchants, charging they are trying to break the boycott, in league with Jewish colleagues in Palestine. 

In Iraq today there is no Jewish magistrate, and no Jews of any country. including the United States, are granted transit visas. 

Second. Syria. Here are 10,000 Jews-2.500 in Damascus, 7,500 in Aleppo. The Damascus Jews are in a sorry state. Half live on charity funds contributed by Jewish societies. Eighty percent of the Jews are peddlers. 15 percent are in the middle class and five percent, are '"wealthy." There are six Jewish physicians, but no Jewish industrialists, lawyers. architects or other professionals. Discrimination is practiced in many ways. Thousands of Syrians flock to Palestine in times of emergency, but if one Jew is caught on the border, the entire press launches a campaign. Today Syria makes it virtually impossible for Jews to go to Palestine. There are almost no Jewish officials in the Syrian government. Jewish newspapers are not permitted to enter Syria, and when the Syrian press has occasion to speak of Jews it is often derogatory. 

In June. 1946, a regulation was adopted, reading: "Any person who imports. sells. buys or smuggles or tries to smuggle Zionist goods into Syria is liable to life imprisonment or death." In recent elections based on the new constitution, Jews were accorded one parliamentary seat out of 137. At first they refused this, not wishing to have the responsibility. They turned out to be prophetic, for when Jewish Deputy Wahid Mizrachi was elected, he declared he would be faithful to his people and his fatherland. The newspaper Alif Ba of July 15, 1947, demanded, "What people and what fatherland?" 

Third, the Lebanon. Jews from Palestine are not freely allowed Into the Lebanon. Even when the United Nations committee went there, it took official protests to force the Lebanese government to grant visas to a handful of Palestinian Hebrew journalists. The Lebanon today has 6.000 Jews in a population of more than 1,000.000. with the Jews mainly concentrated in Beirut. There is outwardly less discrimination than in other Arab countries because of various population groups such as the Sunnites, Kurds, Armenians and indigenous Christians. The Maronite Patriarch Aridas is a friend of the Jews, Nevertheless. when Jewish students from the United States came to Palestine last year, they were not permitted to disembark at the port of Beirut although other passengers were. Today, large signs on the Palestine-Lebanese border warn against bringing in "Zionist" goods, which means any Jewish-made goods of any kind. 

Fourth, Egypt. There are 70.000 Jews in a population of 17.000,000. Their situation is economically good, but their future is uncertain because of the "Egyptization" of commerce and industry and intensified xenophobia. All accountings of companies, for example, must be written in Arabic, which means that many Jews are replaced. Many Jewish companies are compelled to take Egyptian partners. 

Many Jews do not have Egyptian nationality. This correspondent has seen one Jew proudly unlock a safe and show a certificate of his Egyptian nationality, saying. "This is my most precious possession. very hard to obtain; it is my safeguard for the future." Without this certificate, Jews have no defence against the government. 

There are currently intense nationalistic anti-Jewish campaigns. Only three months ago the newspaper Al Saw. adi denounced Jews in terms reminiscent of Goebbels. 

Fifth. Yemen. Here is an incredible situation for 45 000 Jews in a population of 1,000,000. The treatment of Jews is so bad that even the Arabic paper Aid Ba of Damascus attacked it, pointing out on January 2. 1945, that Jews are not permitted to ride horses—only donkeys: that if a Jew  riding a donkey sees a Moslem ahead of him, he must dismount 30 paces away, wait until the Moslem passes, then mount the donkey again when the Moslem has gone another 30 paces; that a Jew must pass only to the right of a Moslem, and if he does otherwise the Moslem is entitled to force him to return and pass correctly.

Saudi Arabia and Transjordan need no discussion because they have no Jews and no Jews are permitted. 

The things cited here are examples only. but where such things are tolerated, where Jews are continuously and relentlessly held up to ridicule, denounced as dangerous, called a menace to the community and segregated by word, deed and act-in such a framework the life of the average Jew is an endless ordeal of accumulating cruelty and helplessness. (Copyright 1947. Overseas News Agency) 

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03/14 Links Pt2: Amnesty International admits – it wants the destruction of Israel; Netanyahu says it’s ‘absurd’ Iran nuclear talks ongoing after Erbil attack

From Ian:

David Collier: Amnesty International admits – it wants the destruction of Israel

Tokenising Jews, silencing their voice
We are left with O’Brien sitting in his ivory tower talking about Jews. He says he knows what Jews think. He disagrees with surveys that suggest he may be wrong. O’Brien clearly thinks he knows Jews better than they know themselves. British Jews know this antisemitic feature of the hard-left all too well. We dealt with it as it ran rampant through the Labour Party. People telling Jews that they knew better than the Jews, what being Jewish was about.

Since when was it in Amnesty’s remit to cast aside surveys of American Jews and suggest that Amnesty know better?

Like many, O’Brien does not understand ‘Jews’ at all. I am sure he has one or two Jewish friends. People, with one foot already outside of the community who have turned their ‘Jewishness’ into something abstract and meaningless. Just as the Corbynites hid behind fringe hate groups like Jewish Voice for Labour, Amnesty have found their ‘acceptable’ Jews now too.

But Jews won’t be told by naive fools such as O’Brien what they do or do not want. We will reject Amnesty’s blatant antisemitism. The Jewish people were stateless for long enough. We know all too well how high the price can be for political impotence. And as we look at Ukraine – it is worth reminding ourselves of the reality of the world that we live in. The world needs a Jewish state that is independent and capable of defending itself. We need Israel. This is not up for debate.

Seeking the destruction of Israel
So now we know for sure. Amnesty International is seeking the destruction of Israel. O’Brien has his vision. He calls it a ‘Jewish safe space’. He says Israel should not exist as ‘a Jewish state’. We recognise this terminology. It is the same language that BDS uses. With Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran all making genocidal threats, O’Brien is trying to convince Jews they live in ‘Switzerland’.

He has the same problem many on the left do. He sees Jews as white and privileged and he sees Palestinians as ‘brown’ and gives them no agency. Rather than viewing the Islamist need for imperial domination as the problem, he sees the tiny Jewish safe haven as being the cause of the conflict. There is no point looking for logic, truth or consistency in this. It is the same incoherent modern leftist swamp in which antisemitism thrives.

The bottom line is this. Amnesty seeks the destruction of Israel. They want a world without an independent state for the Jewish people. They have clearly placed this at the top of their ideological wish list. There is no argument anymore. Amnesty International are as antisemitic as they come.

JPost Editorial: Amnesty International's report on Israel is full of distortions and lies

In the US, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland) called the report “a gross mischaracterization of Israel, its history and its values.” State Department spokesperson Ned Price warned against applying double standards to Israel.

Most Jewish organizations also rejected the report. But O’Brien, who is not Jewish, obviously trusts his gut instinct more. He also seems to be hoping that by “changing the conversation” and repeating the apartheid lie enough times, he can create new facts.

The event is the first in a series hosted by the WNDC that will explore “Palestine past, present and future.” Israel’s own ancient past, its successful present and its future as the Jewish state is of less importance to the group.

In a separate story published over the weekend, JTA revealed that the environmental Sierra Club NGO has canceled its scheduled trips to Israel in response to pressure from progressive and anti-Zionist groups after activists alleged the organization was “greenwashing the conflict” and “providing legitimacy to the Israeli state, which is engaged in apartheid against the Palestinian people,” according to an email seen by the news agency.

This is another example of what happens when the apartheid libel is deliberately spread.

Such efforts don’t only harm Israel’s image, they cause once respected organizations to lose their credibility and standing. Above all, they do absolutely nothing to promote peace or help the Palestinians.

By criminalizing Israel and ignoring Palestinian anti-normalization and terrorism, these organizations and the progressive activists are encouraging more rejectionism and more terror.

The Palestinian Authority will see no reason to make even basic moves to peace as long as it believes it can erase Israel with progressive, Western support. The lies themselves fuel further attacks, both on Israelis and on Jews and Jewish targets around the world. The apartheid libel is not only a lie, it is a dangerous one.

Because it’s not like there’s an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in Ukraine or anything, so @hrw is back to their favorite topic - Jew bashing. Of course taking everything out of context, to engage in some not-so-mild misinformation and bigotry. https://t.co/5iPbRpQYPN

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) March 14, 2022

Netanyahu: New Nuclear Agreement Will Give the Ayatollahs a Nuclear Arsenal

Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu launched a scathing attack on world powers who are continuing to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran — even after the Islamic Republic fired missiles toward the US consulate in Iraqi Kurdistan.

In video messages posted to social media in both Hebrew and English on Sunday evening — addressed to Israeli and American citizens, respectively — the former prime minister said it was “absurd” for world powers to continue to negotiate in Vienna with Tehran.

“The desperate rush to sign this flawed nuclear agreement with Iran is not only absurd, it’s downright dangerous,” Netanyahu stated in his English video, posted with the caption: “Every American family should watch this video.”

“Yesterday, Iran fired missiles in the vicinity of the American consulate in Iraq, and the US continues to charge ahead, along with the other powers, to sign a nuclear agreement that will give the ayatollahs a nuclear arsenal,” Netanyahu charged.

“It would also relieve sanctions and give them hundreds of billions of dollars in order to continue the terror that they waged yesterday and wage every day throughout the Middle East and the world,” he said. “This agreement is even worse than its predecessor, because in three years’ time, under this agreement, Iran will be a threshold nuclear state. It will have enough enriched uranium to create dozens and dozens of nuclear bombs and it will have the ICBMs [intercontinental ballistic missiles] to deliver them to any place in the United States.”

The final details of the burgeoning nuclear deal between Iran and world powers have yet to be revealed, and diplomats involved have said that some remaining elements are still being negotiated. It was not immediately clear which documents or intelligence Netanyahu was basing his claims on.

Every American family should watch this video. pic.twitter.com/BVo5ZFJwKk

— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) March 13, 2022

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There is lots more antisemitism in Morocco's official Religious Affairs Ministry site

Yesterday I reported that an official page at Morocco's Religious Affairs Ministry included an admiring article about an Arabic translation of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

It turns out that there are plenty of other examples of state antisemitism on that site.

While most of Morocco's official websites are complimentary to Jews and talk about coexistence, the Religious Affairs Ministry site has a definite problem with Jews.

An article describes how crypto-Jews in the Ottoman Empire converted to Islam in order to subvert the nation and turn it towards Western ways, like changing the weekend from Friday to Sunday. It also says that Jews control the media worldwide.

Another expands on the popular Arab theme of how much Zionists hated Mizrahi Jews, making this absurd claim: "In October 1948, the Jewish Agency decided to stop the immigration of Eastern Arab Jews to Israel, and its spokesmen declared the following: 'We must not forget that the State of Israel was established on the Palestinian lands to solve the problem of Ashkenazi Jews.'" Then the Zionists changed their minds, the article says, because they couldn't attract enough Ashkenazi Jews.

This article about the tiny and irrelevant anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism starts off with classic antisemitic tropes:

Despite the strength and tyranny of the World Zionist Party and its control over many means of propaganda and media, and its control over the political and economic machine in many capitals of Western Europe, there is a group of Jews who have had enough courage to challenge it and challenge its domination.

Then we have "The Hostile Attitude of the Jews towards the Holy Prophet," an example of pure antisemitic incitement, which starts off with:

        Some people think that the war between Arabs and Jews is: the war of Arab nationalism on one side and Jewish nationalism on the other, and that the cause of the sinful Zionist aggression is: the love of Jewish national expansion at the expense of the Arab countries, as they are Arab countries only!

         So...some people think. But the truth is: The Jews’ motive for recurring aggression is the mean religious hatred that their innate nature - since their first day - has been imprinted on, and which they inherited from their ancient forefathers.

        The present war is: a war between Islam and Judaism, frankly and without the veil, and if the Arab countries embraced a religion other than Islam, they would not see aggression.

The article also says "Jews carry in their hearts the black hatred of all humanity, and believe that they are the dear children of God, and the rest of the people were from the breeds of mules and donkeys."

Another says that the Western Wall has no holiness for Jews, and they made up a story that it was sacred to them so that they could use it as a means to take over all of Jerusalem.

And here's one that starts with an admiring quote from a 1928 book:

The Jews traditionally hate other religions, and from this hatred arose in them a greed to plot against all humankind. From this plot they come to work for the demise of every non-Israeli entity and its replacement by a Zionist international rule. This is their plan that they followed.

These are just some of the articles, and only ones that talk about Jews. They also have a lot of articles about how Zionists and Israel are evil.

It seems incongruous that the official websites of a nation Israel is at peace with should still include so many examples of pure Jew-hatred and incitement.

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Are Amnesty, HRW and Oxfam antisemitic?

From Politico:

The Trump administration is considering declaring that several prominent international NGOs — including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Oxfam — are anti-Semitic and that governments should not support them, two people familiar with the issue said.

The proposed declaration could come from the State Department as soon as this week. If the declaration happens, it is likely to cause an uproar among civil society groups and might spur litigation. Critics of the possible move also worry it could lead other governments to further crack down on such groups. The groups named, meanwhile, deny any allegations that they are anti-Semitic.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is pushing for the declaration, according to a congressional aide with contacts inside the State Department. 

The declaration is expected to take the form of a report from the office of Elan Carr, the U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism. The report would mention organizations including Oxfam, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. It would declare that it is U.S. policy not to support such groups, including financially, and urge other governments to cease their support.

The report would cite such groups’ alleged or perceived support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which has targeted Israel over its construction of settlements on land Palestinians claim for a future state.

It’s also expected to point to reports and press statements such groups have released about the impact of Israeli settlements, as well as their involvement or perceived support for a United Nations database of businesses that operate in disputed territories.

There is absolutely no doubt that these groups are structurally and systematically biased against Israel. They hire people to "research" Israel with a history of anti-Israel advocacy. 

One example is Amnesty's Saleh Hijazi, Deputy Regional Director of the MENA Region, whose Facebook pages include support for terrorists Leila Khaled and Khader Adnan, a glaring piece of hypocrisy for a supposed human rights advocate. 

Similarly, Omar Shakir had a well-documented history of supporting BDS against all of Israel (not just "settlements") and of being obsessively anti-Israel when he was hired by HRW - and that continued even as he was employed by them.

This results in these NGOs issuing anti-Israel reports that are longer, more numerous and more detailed than their reports on virtually any other nation, with only a smattering of reports about Palestinian human rights or Arab human rights abuses against Palestinians (which only exist when their anti-Israel obsessions were revealed so they wrote token reports for "balance.") In fact, in some cases these groups have supported terror-linked NGOs.

Israel is routinely accused of "apartheid" by these NGOs. There is literally no other nation in the world that they make similar accusations of.

These NGOs become obsessed about companies like TripAdvisor and AirBnB that operate in disputed territories. There is literally no other nation in the world that they make similar accusations of, let alone participate in huge funded campaigns against international companies.

Amnesty and HRW knowingly twist international law to pretend that Palestinians have a "right to return." As many as 60 million Europeans became refugees after World War II, but none of them have the same "right to return" that the 700,000 Palestinian refugees and their millions of descendants are considered to have today by these NGOs. The only purpose of this demand is to destroy the Jewish state demographically. 

Do these obsessions cross the line into antisemitism? 

By the IHRA working definition of antisemitism, there is no doubt that these groups are antisemitic because they hold Israel to standards that they do not apply to any other country.  

Even if you do not accept the IHRA definition these NGOs seems to have a problem with Jews. 

For example,  this report from HRW denigrating religious Jews:

Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, who holds the state-funded, statutory position of Israel’s Chief Sephardic Rabbi, said in a March 12, 2016 sermon, partly in response to Eisenkot’s admonition to limit the use of lethal force, that the Bible authorizes a shoot-to-kill policy: “‘Whoever comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.’ … let them afterward take you to the High Court of Justice or bring some military chief of staff who will say something else … As soon as an attacker knows that if he comes with a knife, he won’t return alive, it will deter them. That’s why it’s a religious commandment to kill him.”

The Sephardic Chief Rabbi does not command police or soldiers, but he heads the Supreme Rabbinical Tribunal and is tasked with advising on the interpretation of religious law. 

...

According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, about half of Jewish Israelis define themselves as religious or traditional, not including ultra-Orthodox Jews, who usually do not serve in the army. Conscription for non-ultra-Orthodox Jewish men is universal. Most soldiers are in their teens or early 20s, and after a few months of basic training, they can be sent to serve in the occupied West Bank.

This is an accusation that religious (and traditional) Jews are bloodthirsty fanatics who would kill Arabs at a drop of a hat - and against army regulations. That is antisemitic slander. 

Or Amnesty-USA sponsoring a tour by Bassem Tamimi, who accuses Jews of stealing the organs of Palestinians.

Or this Amnesty employee that denied Egypt's expulsion of its Jews - meaning that Jews are the only group whose human rights are not to be defended.

Or these groups pushing to expel Jews - and only Jews - from their homes in disputed territories when there are also thousands of Israeli Arabs who live across the Green Line but are never called "settlers."

Or Ken Roth of HRW practically justifying European antisemitism as simply a response to Israeli actions.

Or Amnesty-UK which has hosted antisemites and BDSers at its headquarters but denied hosting Jewish Zionist groups.

Or when Amnesty's members voted against a resolution condemning antisemitism - a resolution that had nothing to do with Israel, and the only resolution that was defeated at that conference.

Or when Amnesty praised the "Youth Against Settlements" group - which is explicitly antisemitic.

Or Oxfam selling antisemitic literature on its site - copies of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and other antisemitic books that Oxfam members owned, photographed and blurbed on their website without even considering this to be a problem.

Or Oxfam excusing and supporting Miftah when the latter published the blood libel.

There are dozens of such examples.

In total, it is obvious that these NGOs have a problem not just with Israel, but many of their members have problems with Jews. 

Even so, it is unclear whether it is wise for the State Department to declare them antisemitic. Outside the Middle East, the groups seem to do some excellent work and have dedicated employees who really care about human rights. (If the NGOs really wanted to be objective, they would rotate their researchers to different areas of the world instead of allowing obsessive haters of Israel to choose to demonize Israel.)

Declaring the entire organizations themselves to be antisemitic could be counterproductive. But they do have an crazed focus on attacking the Jewish state, and that needs to be publicized.

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Mahmoud Abbas writes entire article full of lies about Iraqi Jews

Last week I noted a new book in Arabic that claimed that Jews were forced out of Iraq by Iraqis who were colluding with Zionists. Because of this collusion, the Iraqis took away the rights of Jews and eventually forced them out,

As nutty as that was, Mahmoud Abbas' idea of history is even more filled with lies.

He wrote an article in Ma'an two weeks ago, translated now by MEMRI, where he claims there was a Zionist-British-Iraqi conspiracy to expel the Jews. He further claims that Iraqi Jews had no desire to leave the country but a Zionist terror spree in Iraq convinced them to go.

We've seen these bizarre conspiracy theories before, and they have been debunked thoroughly. Here is another opportunity to show that Mahmoud Abbas is a liar.

Here is how the American Jewish Yearbook contemporaneously described life for Jews in Iraq before Israel was declared a state:

Iraq's position at the crossroads of Russian and Western influences made her the target for conflicting propaganda from Russian sources on the one hand, and American and British on the other. Whenever these cross-currents resulted in student demonstrations, strikes or even the fall of a government, as in January, 1948, the Jews were the first to be endangered by the restless elements.

As a result of the growing economic discrimination against Jews, a number of them emigrated from Iraq, and many went to Palestine, usually illegally. The Arab League boycott of "Zionist goods," in which Iraq had already distinguished itself in 1946, furnished a ready pretext for commercial discrimination. The boycott was against all goods coming from and via Palestine. Typical of the stupidly blind fanaticism was a case reported in October, 1947, when Swiss goods arriving in Baghdad by an airplane which had landed at a Palestinian airport were confiscated and burned at once.

When the UN partition decision was announced, a storm broke out in Iraq as in all other Arab states. Nevertheless, the Iraqi government did not allow any serious bloodshed or pillage to develop. It contented itself with nonviolent economic pressure. To protect Iraqi Jews, Chief Rabbi Sassoon Kedmi of Baghdad was compelled to declare to the Iraqi press the "complete solidarity of Iraqi Jews with other Iraqis in the denunciation of Zionism and in their determination to continue living in brotherly Iraq, as they have lived for hundreds of years."

However, the fury had been let loose. After December 1, 1947, no Jews were permitted to leave Iraq, and those who had not yet left could not now escape. At first the Iraqi assault on local Jewry was financial, Jews being forced to contribute large sums to the fighting fund for the Palestinian Arabs. From January to May, 1948, life in Iraq was extremely unpleasant. Anti-Jewish feeling ran high, especially as Iraqi troops were defeated and the Arab refugees began arriving from Palestine. However, there was an outward calm. There were no pogroms in Iraq then, at least none that received any publicity abroad.

The storm really broke on May 15. Then, Jews were treated in Iraq as enemies within the gate, spies, agents provocateurs. Iraqi Jewry's only hope for the future lay in emigration.

When Iraq joined the other Arab nations in the war against Israel in May, 1948, the antagonism and bitterness, which had been stored up against the Jews of Iraq during the six months that followed the United Nations decision to partition Palestine, found an outlet. There were demonstrations by angered mobs and riots in some of the smaller towns in Iraq which resulted in some loss of life and damage to property. But for the most part Iraqi Jewry suffered from forms of official persecution, such as travel restrictions, dismissal of Jewish government officials, excessive taxation, and "voluntary contributions" to "general welfare" causes.

All Jews were classed as enemy aliens, and all Zionist activities were characterized as treason. Imposing martial law, the government embarked on a program of searching Jewish homes "for illegal weapons," since, under martial law, arrests or searches could be made on the sole basis of suspicion. Many Iraqis found this a convenient way of settling long-standing personal feuds with their Jewish neighbors. All in all, 310 Jews were arrested in Bagdad alone during the initial period of the war; about half of these were released after questioning, and the rest were held for trial. Similar acts occurred in other towns and villages.

The anti-Jewish repressions also served as a lucrative source of income for the government, which imposed heavy fines upon arrested Jews, thus replenishing its treasury and helping to finance the cost of the war. In addition, the government requisitioned buildings owned by the Jewish community, as well as some Jewish-owned private buildings, to house Arab refugees from Palestine. The sequestration of Jewish property and business, and blackmail, official and unofficial, proved profitable undertakings. The Jews found themselves forced to become the heaviest contributors to government campaigns for funds to continue the war and to provide for the Arab refugees, as the alternative to being branded enemies, Zionists, Communists, or spies. Thus, the wave of arrests of wealthy Jews was especially productive financially. The dismissal of almost all Jewish officials from government jobs, to "insure the better guarding of state secrets," proved of benefit to the large number of Iraqi Moslems who replaced them. Jews were also prohibited from enrolling in government schools of higher education.

The anti-Jewish persecutions reached their height with the arrest and execution of Shafiq Ades, an Iraqi Jew, on the charge of dealing with the enemy by selling arms to Israel. Surplus material which Ades had purchased two years previously from the British army was found in Palestine during the fighting. Ades claimed that he had sold the equipment to Italy. Because Ades threatened to expose several Moslem high government officials as having been involved in the deal, his trial was held behind closed doors. He was convicted in September, 1948, and his hanging in the public square in Basra was followed by the confiscation of his property, officially valued at $20,000,000. The execution of Ades was a shock to most Iraqis, Jews and non-Jews alike, because he had never associated himself with the Jewish community or contributed to its institutions.

No Jew was spared in the outburst of Iraqi antagonism, not even Chief Rabbi Sassoon Kadourie, who was arrested in October, 1948, allegedly for having, in the course of his Yom Kippur sermon in the synagogue, exhorted the Jews to "acts contrary to the safety of the state."

Contrary to Abbas' claims, there was persecution against Iraqi Jews before Israel; Iraqi Jews risked their lives to make aliyah before Israel was declared; the Iraqi government was the only party behind the decision to expel their Jews and grab their property; the Jews who said that they were anti-Zionist were often forced to say that in order to keep their jobs or money (and even then it did not help them.)

 I also would like to call attention to an AP article written during the first phase of the Iraqi exodus, that shows that many Jews were anxious to leave Iraq and go to Israel:

Abbas is once again proven to be a liar.

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Arabic book: "Zionists conspired with Iraqi government to expel Jews"

A new Arabic book attempts to prove that Iraqi Jews were forced out of the country by Israel working together with the Iraqi government.

Written by Egyptian Mohamed Ahmed Saleh Hussein, the book claims that Jews in Iraq lived a wonderful existence. It bases most of its conclusions based on an autobiography by Israel Prize winner Sasson Somekh, a secular Jew who lived in Iraq and whose family immigrated to Israel in 1951. He quotes Somekh, who was eighteen at the time, as saying that he felt not that he was immigrating to Israel but that he was being uprooted from his country, Iraq. This proves, according to Hussein, that Jews in Arab countries were unwilling to move to Israel.

Of course, if there hadn't been rampant anti-semitism and governmental discrimination against Jews in Iraq, the Jewish community would not have been entirely uprooted to begin with.

Hussein rehashes the old discredited claims that it was a Zionist campaign of terror that forced the Jews to leave. Beyond that, he says that Iraqi authorities colluded with "Zionists" to expel the Jews from the country. As the book reviewer summarizes it:

The authorities of that era conspired with Zionism, and began to put pressure on Iraqi Jews, forcing them to leave. Thus, they were forced to drop their Iraqi nationality, and [Iraqi authorities] showed deliberate discrimination against them is in the "sacking of dozens of Jewish civil servants, and limiting the number of students admitted to schools and universities, and forcing Jews to show trials that would usually end with their execution.". This gave the Zionist media rich material to serve their interests... This pushed the Jews of Iraq to immigration, especially after the Farhood [pogrom in Baghdad] that led to the process called "Ezra and Nehemia" [airlift to Israel.] From here, it is clear that the Iraqi Jewish community was the victim of a big conspiracy involving states and many systems, forcing themm to leave their country.

Hussein seems to admit that there was state-sponsored discrimination against Jews - but he bizarrely blames "Zionists" for it. Not only that, he mentions the Farhud massacre, but seems to imply that this was no big deal and not a factor.

The author also notes that Iraqis Jews started an "Anti-Zionist" committee in 1945, which he uses as proof that they were not interested in moving to Israel. The fact that this committee was meant to distance the Jews from the coming anti-semitism that they could anticipate coming down the pike doesn't seem to occur to Hussein.

Based on this review, it appears that the book ends up proving what it is meant to disprove. Of course most people will not willingly uproot their homes and communities where they lived for millennia - it takes a big push to get people to want to do that. Iraq provided that push with its increased anti-semitism of the 1940s and 1950s, official state-sanctioned Jew hatred that Hussein seems to admit. But he is forced to create a convoluted conspiracy theory - based, as always, on the evil Zionist entity - to explain the rampant anti-semitism that is well-documented throughout the entire Arab world in those days.

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