Edwin Black: The Iraqi Farhud stymies invented Arab history
The Arab claim that they have no responsibility for the Holocaust is overturned by the Farhud, as is their claim to a unique refugee status.Eurovision organizers: No interest in 'rumors' about 'Toy' plagiarism
When International Farhud Day was proclaimed at a conference convened at the United Nations headquarters on June 1, 2015, its proponents wanted to achieve more than merely establish a commemoration of the ghastly 1941 Arab-Nazi pogrom in Baghdad that killed and injured hundreds of Iraqi Jews.
Farhud means violent dispossession. The Farhud was but the first bloody step along the tormented path to the ultimate expulsion of some 850,000 Jews from across the Arab world. That systematic expulsion ended centuries of Jewish existence and stature in those lands.
Jews had thrived in Iraq for 2,700 years, a thousand years before Mohammad. But all that came to end when the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, led the broad Arab-Nazi alliance in the Holocaust that produced a military, economic, political and ideological common cause with Hitler. Although Husseini spearheaded an international pro-Nazi, anti-Jewish Islamic movement from India to Central Europe to the Middle East, it was in Baghdad—a 1,000-kilometer drive from Jerusalem— that he launched his robust coordination with the Third Reich.
In 1941, Iraq still hosted Britain’s Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which controlled the region’s oil. Hitler wanted that oil to propel his invasion of Russia.
The Arabs, led by Husseini, wanted the Jews out of Palestine and Europe’s persecuted Jews kept away from the Middle East. Indeed, Husseini persuasively argued to Hitler that Jews should not be expelled to Palestine but rather to “Poland,” where “they will be under active control.” Translation: send Jews to the concentration camps.
Husseini had visited concentration camps. He had been hosted by architect of the genocide Heinrich Himmler, and the Mufti considered Shoah engineer Adolf Eichmann not only a great friend, but a “diamond” among men.
Nazi lust for oil and Arab hatred of Jews combined synergistically June 1–2, 1941 burning the Farhud into history. Arab soldiers, police, and hooligans, swearing allegiance to the Mufti and Hitler, bolstered by fascist coup plotters known as the Golden Square, ran wild in the streets, raping, shooting, burning, dismembering, and decapitating. Jewish blood flowed through those streets and their screams created echoes that have never faded.
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the body that oversees the Eurovision, said this week that it is paying no heed to reports of copyright accusations against Israel's Eurovision-winning song "Toy."
The EBU told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday that it considers the plagiarism accusations "baseless rumors."
On Tuesday, the composer of "Toy" confirmed he had received a letter earlier this month from Universal Music Group, alleging similarities between the song and the 2003 White Stripes track "Seven Nation Army."
Composer and musician Doron Medalie told the Post on Tuesday that “it’s not a lawsuit, there’s no court here. It’s a letter of clarification, so we’re clarifying.”
Despite Hebrew media reports to the contrary, the EBU told the Post Thursday that it is not concerned with the issue.
"As we are busy working with KAN, preparing for next year's Eurovision Song Contest in Israel, we are not interested in entertaining such rumors," it said.