User:Ykantor/Sandbox/History of the Jews under Muslim rule

see History of the Jews under Muslim rule

see Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries

"But there is a difference in the narratives. Jews experienced systematic persecution and discrimination in Arab countries, including physical persecution and even hanging. A comparison was even made to the extermination of the Jews in the" AdelmanBarkan2013p185

=de facto expulsion of the Jews from most Arab states= "If Arab countries took no responsibility for forcing the Jews to leave, the new Israeli state reciprocated…The de facto expulsion of the Jews from most Arab state …In expelling the Jews and encouraging anti Jewish policies, The Arab states played into Israeli" AdelmanBarkan2011p179

Iraq- "Ultimately, what  had  begun  as  voluntary emigration  turned  into  an  expulsion,  and  the  emigrants  became  persecuted, destitute refugees. Meir-Glitzenstein2004p203

= Jews in Arab states On 1948= As the armed conflict in Palestine intensified, the Jews in Arab and Moslem states suffered persecutions.

=Jews in Palestine= book: Une si longue présence, Comment le monde arabe a perdu ses Juifs, 1947-1967, by Nathan Weinstock

a Book review (English): " Une si longue présence, Comment le monde arabe a perdu ses Juifs, 1947-1967" 2008, by Nathan Weinstock. (and a Hebrew review) הקונסול הבריטי בארץ ישראל, שכתב ב-1831 כי "הסחטנות ומעשי הדיכוי הפוגעים ביהודים הם רבים כל כך, עד שאומרים כי היהודים צריכים לשלם אפילו בעד האוויר שהם נושמים". = Jews in Morocco= - "The Jewish quarter of FEZ was almost destroyed in 1912 by a Muslim mob" (Morris,Righteous Victims, 2001, p. 11). "Fig. 9 : Victims of the 1907 street fighting in Casablanca are taken away for burial; especially hard hit was the Mellah, where dozens of people were killed during the bombardment and subsequent looting"

"in 1907-1908 anti European feelings extended to include anti Jewish manifestations in Quijda, Casablanca, and Fez". Laskier2012p42

"Casablanca, in 2007 30 Jews were killed and 200 women, girls and boys abducted" Wistrich1994p205

Fenton, Paul) ,2012 [http://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/9708122 Pogrome de Fès ou le Tritel Jews in Morocco: The Fez Pogrom of 1912 Jews in Morocco: The Fez Pogrom of 1912

=Jews in Iraq= relates to: Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries

Gat1998p47 "The new Iraqi state, established in 1922, needed intellectuals in order to create the foundation for normative state services.  The monarchy encouraged Jews to study abroad and expected them, on their return, to  contribute to and enhance the prosperity of the country. The new state granted its  minorities the necessary security, including the Jewish minority, safeguarded in its  constitution (Hourani, 1947 : 91-93). The Jews were granted membership in the House  of Representatives and the Senate. Thus, the Jews of Iraq, among them judges, jurists,  writers, poets and politicians, were part of the elite in the Iraqi Arab state, and found  themselves at the center of its political and intellectual life. They viewed themselves as  helping to shape the character of Iraqi society and state.  In the period following the establishment of Iraq as an independent state, the  Jews underwent a process of integration into the life of the Iraqi people. Jewish writers and poets began to write in Arabic for all the people of Iraq, Arabs and Jews alike. Jewish activity was omnipresent, demonstrating a sense of identification with the national aspirations of the Iraqi people. They felt that they were Jews by religion and Arabs by nationality; after all, Jews and Arabs are members of the same race (Kezaz,  1985:34-37,47). This cultural and economic integration seemed to augur a glowing future for the Jewish community in Iraq. However, several events which occurred in the 1930s indicated a rather different prospect. At the beginning of the decade, an Arab intelligentsia emerged which sought to ensure its place in public and government life,  taking over the public positions held by the Jews. In 1933 the Nazis came to power in Germany, and their influence began rapidly to spread to Iraq, which only one year  earlier had achieved independence. Hitler's, Mein Kampf was translated into Arabic and serialized in the newspaper "Alam il-Arabi" (Kezaz, 1986 : 53-54). Iraqi nationalists viewed Nazism as coinciding with their anti-British and anti-Jewish views. Additionally, we may note the growing influence of the Palestinian exiles, headed by their spiritual leader Haj Amin al-Husseini, who arrived in 1939 (Glitzenstein-Meir,  1981 : 22). The most blatant expression of these influences was the pogrom (Farhud) of 1941 which erupted on the Jewish festival of Shavuot (Pentecost 1-2 June). The Farhud   claimed some 180 Jewish lives, with hundreds more wounded and much property  destroyed and plundered (Meir, 1973 : 35 ; Hamdi, 1987 : 165). …the Farhud was followed by a period of economic revival and prosperity, reflected in the expansion of the school  system and the building of new, well-to-do neighborhoods (Habas, 1943 : 137-147)2. The situation of the Jews grew increasingly grave as the decision on the fate of Palestine approached. Immediately after the establishment of the State of Israel, the Iraqi government adopted a policy of anti-Jewish discrimination, mass dismissals from  government service, and arrests. The climax of this policy was the hanging of the Jewish millionaire, Shafiq Ades on September 1948, and the confiscation of his  property (Kedourie, 1971 ; Cohen, 1989 : 41-42)3. The Jews felt the ground burning under their feet. At the end of 1949, Jews began to flee to Iran, and thence to Israel, in such large numbers that all efforts by the Iraqi government to halt their flight proved  fruitless. This was a major consideration in the decision by the Iraqi government, headed by Tawfiq as-Suwaydi, to pass the Denationalization Law on March 1950,  under which every Jew was entitled to leave Iraq freely, forfeiting his Iraqi citizenship  for ever (Gat, 1997 : 68-76). The Jews took advantage of the law, and by the end of 1952, most of them had emigrated to Israel, practically bringing to a close the history  of the community.Gat1998p47

The exodus reasons
"…fight against Zionism, the state engaged in a process of collective punishments…unjustly designated an entire community as second-rate citizens. These undemocratic measures …pushed the Jews to emigrate from Iraq" Bashkin2012p185

"Any tension in the Middle east would impinge directly on the situation of the Jews. Their chances of having stability or equality in Iraq appeared slim, and therefore it is understandable that many members of the community… wished to leave Iraq…The timing was determined by the Iraqi government, Israel was the only available option, and the magnitude of the emigration was due to the growing insecurity of the Jewish community in 1950. … In a different, non catastrophic context, as occurred in other Muslim countries such as Iran and Egypt, one might have expected a much slower, drawn out exodus and a range of destinations, with Israel being only one of them, not necessarily the main one" Meir-Glitzenstein2004p216

Was Zionism the reason for the exodus?
Was the Zionist movement indeed responsible for the Aliyah of Iraqi Jewry, as the Zionist and anti-Zionist explanations would have it, or might there be- as I shall demonstrate in this study- a different, more complex explanation?

Opression
the Iraqi government in 19 Oct 1949 proposed to exchange Iraqi Jews for Palestinian refugees

Nuri al-Said, the Iraqi prime minister, was determined to drive the Jews out of his country as quickly as possible, Gat2013p124 Bashkin2012p277 KacowiczLutomski2007

-- AdelmanBarkan There were anti Jewish laws. AdelmanBarkan2013p237

and on August 21 1950 he threatened to revoke the license of the company transporting the Jewish exodus if it did not fulfill its daily quota of 500 Jews. On September 18, 1950, Nuri al-Said summoned a representative of the Jewish community and claimed Israel was behind the emigration delay, threatening to "take them to the borders" and forcibly expel the Jews AdelmanBarkan2013p365 -- bashkin p.190 - the anti jew campain improved when Nuri Said resigned at Dec 1949

"Sixty year old man was sentenced to five years in jail for getting a letter from his son in Palestine…Large numbers of Jews employed at government ministries were let go from their position" Bashkin2012p187 - gat

if Israel will not absorb them at a fast rate, "driving the Jews across the Kuwaiti border" Gat2013 p127

(gat, p118) The Iraqi regime crammed Jews from outlying areas into Baghdad and stripped many of their nationality, deprived them of their sources of livelihood" but Israel restricted the immigration from Iraq.

gat p. 113 "the Jews from the provincial towns. Several days after the airlift to Israel began, their Arab neighbours began to threaten their lives, demand their property and insist that they abandon their homes....the police decided...them to move to Baghdad. These Jews arrived penniless

gat,p. 116 a proposal was raised in the government that the Jews be expelled by force from Iraq...transfer of Jews in convoys to Jordan whence they would be taken by force to the Israeli border. (summer 1950) gat,p. 118 "in mid September 1950".. Nuri Said became a prime minister, and "involving ...Britain and the USA in the Issue"

gat,p. 119 "Nuri Said was determined to do everything possible to dispatch the Jews at the Earliest opportunity"

gat,p. 125 "Israel informed…that unrestricted immigration [from Iraq] was being delayed owing to financial constraints and limited absorptive capacity". Israel increase the quota from 4000 per month to 6000, "but not to 1000 per day, as Nuri As-said demanded". It angered Nuri. The Iraqis considered "driving the Jews across the Kuweiti borders". Nuri told the U.S that these Jews refugees are undermining the state and in contact with communists agents. The parliament is expected to criticize the government "focusing on its failure to expel the jews…. The press would conduct a bitter campaign against the government and against the jews." Thus he considered transporting those jews to Jordan or Syria or Kuwait.

--- Glitzenstein Nuri's threats "encouraged Iraqi officials to abuse the departing jews before they boarded the planes and to destroy their baggage". Meir-Glitzenstein2004p206

-- Hakohen A quote:"in mid September 1950, Nuri al-Said replaced...as prime minister. "Said had warned the Jewish community of Baghdad to make haste; otherwise, he would take the Jews to the Borders himself" Hakohen2003p124 (also Gat p. 119) -- Morris

"In Iraq, following the May 1948 declaration of martial law, hundreds of Jews were arrested (the Iraqi government admitted to “276” Jews detained and “1,188” non-Jews),48 and Jewish property was arbitrarily confiscated. Jewish students were banned from high schools and universities. Some fifteen hundred Jews were dismissed from government positions, the Iraqi Ministry of Health refused to renew the licenses of Jewish physicians or issue new ones, Jewish merchants’ import and export licenses were canceled, and various economic sanctions were imposed on the Jewish community.49 In January 1949, Prime Minister Nuri Sa’id threatened “that all Iraqi Jews would be expelled if the Israelis did not allow the Arab refugees to return to Palestine.”50 A new “wave of persecution” was unleashed against the 125,000-strong community in early October 1949, with about two thousand being packed off to jails and “concentration camps” and vast amounts of money being extorted in fines on various pretexts.51 But the Iraqi government kept a tight leash on the “street.” (Morris 2008, p. 413).

Tripp, p. 122 military reverses of the Arab armies led them to agree to the cease-fires of June and July 1948..

The minister of defence, Sadiq al-Bassam, denied much say in the conduct of the war, used the opportunity to initiate systematic harassment of the Iraqi Jewish community whose loyalties were now more suspect than ever. Their movements were restricted, Jews were barred from certain government posts, courts martial were used extensively to imprison and intimidate Jews and a prominent member of the Community was executed for allegedly assisting the new state of Israel. The international outcry that ensued gave the prime minister and alBassam’s political rivals the opportunity to oust him from the cabinet. However, this could not diminish the increasing sense of threat within the Jewish community as the Arab armies in Palestine suffered a succession of defeats

Tripp2002p125 p. 125 In early 1949 " Nuri added to the Iraqi Jewish community’s sense of insecurity by threatening to expel the entire community if the Palestinian refugees were not allowed to return to their homes"

Tripp,p. 125 " the Iraqi security services uncovered a Zionist network in Iraq which was helping Iraqi jews emigrate to Israel. This led in turn to extensive arrests in the Jewish community and to increased suspicion, effectively barring young Jewish Iraqis from employment by the state or in the professions. For many in the Iraqi Jewish community it appeared that there was indeed no future in Iraq itself since neither their community leaders nor any international body was willing or able to defend their rights as Iraqi citizens. Encouraged both by successive Iraqi governments and by the Israeli authorities, the vast majority of the community of over 100,00 took advantage of a 1950 law"

Bombing
As for Salah and Basri, many of the Iraqi Jewish immigrants in Israel, who lived for long periods in shabby tent camps with poor services, expressed either indifference or pleasure at their fate. This is God's revenge on the movement that brought us here,' some said. Many continued to believe that Salah and Basri had thrown the bombs 'in order to encourage the emigration from Iraq.(BlackMorris)

-=-=-=-= As noted above, just over 105,000 Jews had registered by 8 March, of whom almost 40,000 had left the country.87 Some 15,000 more left illegally before and after the law was passed. Since the number of Jews living in Iraq before emigration began has been estimated at 125,000 this means that about 5,000 Jews were left, who had preferred to remain in Iraq.88 Why, then, would anyone in Israel have wanted to throw bombs? Whom would they have wanted to intimidate? (Gat2013p185)

Uri Avnery, without checking the facts, wrote, 'Suddenly something mysterious happened" ...She goes on to distort the dates of the explosions and the number of registrees, in order to prove her contention. Avnery's article and Marion Woolfson's book served as the basis for the arguments of the Palestinian author Abbas Shiblak,the same page? (Gat2013p178

But at their trial, Shalom Salah and Yosef Basri were charged only with throwing the last three bombs (on 19 March at the USIS and at Jewish firms importing American cars). These three incidents occurred after the expiry of the law permitting Jews to leave the country. after denaturalization. Why then were they charged only with three out of the five bombings? This is particularly puzzling since the police noted during the trials that one of the reports seized during the interrogations indicated clearly that a member of the underground had thrown the 8 April bomb.65 Moreover, this charge conflicted..(Gat2013p179

Iraq-Responsibility for the bombings
There has been debate over whether the bombs were in fact planted by the Mossad in order to encourage Iraqi Jews to immigrate to the newly created state of Israel or whether they were the work of Arab anti-Jewish extremists in Iraq. The issue has been the subject of lawsuits and inquiries in Israel.

Claims for Israeli involvement
Historian Abbas Shiblak, Iraqi Jew Naeim Giladi and CIA agent Wilbur Crane Eveland have argued that Jews were involved in the bombings.

According to Moshe Gat, as well as Meir-Glitzenstein, Samuel Klausner, Rayyan Al-Shawaf and Yehouda Shenhav, there is "wide consensus among Iraqi Jews that the emissaries threw the bombs in order to hasten the Jews' departure from Iraq"; Shenhav noted an Israeli Foreign Ministry memo which stated that Iraqi Jews reacted to the hangings of Salah and Basri with the attitude: "That is God's revenge on the movement that brought us to such depths."

The British Embassy in Baghdad assessed that the bombings were carried out by Zionist activists trying to highlight the danger to Iraqi Jews, in order influence the State of Israel to accelerate the pace of Jewish emigration. Another possible explanation offered by the embassy was that bombs were meant to change the minds of well-off Jews who wished to stay in Iraq.

The Israeli government has denied any link to Baghdad bombings, and blamed Iraqi nationalists for the attacks on the Iraqi Jews. However, former Israeli acting Prime Minister Yigal Allon, commented that the Mossad false flag bombing tactics of the 1954 Lavon affair were "first tried in Iraq". Allegedly, identical tactics were used later in 1954 by Israeli military intelligence in operation Suzanna, when a group of Zionist Egyptian Jews attempted to plant bombs in an US Information Service library, and in a number of American targets Cairo and Alexandria. According to Teveth, they were hoping that the Muslim Brotherhood, the Communists, 'unspecified malcontents' or 'local nationalists' would be blamed for their actions and this would undermine Western confidence in the existing Egyptian regime by generating public insecurity and actions to bring about arrests, demonstrations, and acts of revenge, while totally concealing the Israeli factor. The operation failed, the perpetrators were arrested by Egyptian police and brought to justice, two were sentenced to death, several to long term imprisonment.

Palestinian historian Abbas Shiblak believes that the attacks were committed by Zionist activists and that the attacks were the pre-eminent reason for the subsequent exodus of Iraqi Jews to Israel. Shiblak also argues that the attacks were an attempt to sour Iraq-American relations, saying "The March 1951 attack on the US Information Centre was probably an attempt to portray the Iraqis as anti-American and to gain more support for the Zionist cause in the United States".

The Iraqi Jewish anti-Zionist author Naeim Giladi maintains that the bombings were "perpetrated by Zionist agents in order to cause fear amongst the Jews, and so promote their exodus to Israel." This theory is shared by Uri Avnery, who wrote in My friend, the enemy that "After the disclosure of the Lavon Affair... the Baghdad affair became more plausible". and Marion Wolfsohn. Giladi claims that it is also supported by Wilbur Crane Eveland, a former senior officer in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), in his book Ropes of Sand. According to Eveland, whose information was presumably based on the Iraqi official investigation, which was shared with the US embassy, "In an attempt to portray the Iraqis as anti-American and to terrorize the Jews, the Zionists planted bombs in the U.S. Information Service library and in the synagogues. Soon leaflets began to appear urging Jews to flee to Israel... most of the world believed reports that Arab terrorism had motivated the flight of the Iraqi Jews whom the Zionists had 'rescued' really just in order to increase Israel’s Jewish population."

Claims of no Israeli involvement
Arthur Neslen's 2006 book "Occupied Minds" contains an interview with the convicted bomber Yehuda Tajar, in which he recalls a conversation with the widow of Beit-Halahmi, a fellow Mossad agent. She implied that Beit-Halahmi, on his own initiative, and without orders from Israel, organized attacks after his colleagues were arrested in order to cast doubt on their guilt.

Mordechai Ben Porat, founder and chair of the Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center, who was coordinating Jewish emigration at the time, was accused of orchestrating a bombing campaign to speed up the Jewish exodus from Iraq by Israeli journalist Baruch Nadel in 1977. Porat sued the journalist for libel, ending in an out-of-court compromise and an apology by the journalist.

Shimon Mendes wrote in ''Ha'aretz that: "Someone had to act, and he took the appropriate action at the right time. For only an act like the explosions would have brought them to Israel. Anyone who understood politics and developments in Israel was long aware of that. "

Historian Moshe Gat believes that "Israeli emissaries not place the bombs at the locations cited in the Iraqi statement", and a 1960 commission of inquiry by the Mossad "did not find any factual proof that the bombs were hurled by any Jewish organization or individual."

Israeli historian Moshe Gat believes that the attacks were the work of members of the anti-Jewish Istiqlal Party and sees little connection between the bombings and exodus.

Gat wrote that frantic Jewish registration for denaturalisation and departure was driven by knowledge that the denaturalisation law was due to expire in March 1951. He also noted the influence of further pressures including the property-freezing law and continued anti-Jewish disturbances, which raised the fear of large-scale pogroms. According to Gat it was the Israelis would have taken such measures to accelerate the Jewish evacuation given that they were already struggling to cope with the existing level of Jewish immigration.

Gat also raised serious doubts about the guilt of the alleged Jewish bomb throwers. An Iraqi army officer known for his anti-Jewish views was originally arrested for the offenses, but never charged, after explosive devices similar to those used in the attack on the Jewish synagogue were found in his home. The 1950–1951 bombings followed a long history of anti-Jewish incidents in Iraq and the prosecution was not able to produce a single eyewitness. Shalom Salah told the court that he had confessed after being severely tortured.

In his 1996 book "To Baghdad and Back," Ben-Porat published the full report of a 1960 investigation committee appointed by David Ben-Gurion, which found no proof that Jews were involved in the bombing.

Yehuda Tajar, who spent ten years in Iraqi prison for his alleged involvement in the bombings, said they were carried out by the Muslim Brotherhood. According to Tajar, the widow of one of the Jewish activists, Yosef Beit-Halahmi, implied he had organized attacks after his colleagues were arrested for the Masuda Shemtov synagogue bombing, to prove that those on trial were not the perpetrators.

Jewish response
bashkin p.190 -the general sentiment was chat if a man as well connected and powerful as (Shafiq)Adas could he eliminated by the state, other Jews would not be protected any longer.

Israeli response
gat,p. 125 "Israel informed…that unrestricted immigration [from Iraq] was being delayed owing to financial constraints and limited absorptive capacity". Israel increase the quota from 4000 per month to 6000, "but not to 1000 per day, as Nuri As-said demanded"

retrospect
"The experience of discrimination and persecution in the Arab world, and the centuries of subjection and humiliation that preceded 1948, had left the emigrant Sephardi communities [in Israel] with a deep dislike, indeed hatred, of that world". (Morris, 2008, p. 415 )

=Notes:=