Posted on 02/28/2004 6:14:06 AM PST by Pharmboy
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 27 — For several weeks, members of the Iraqi Governing Council have been trying to decide whether they should allow tens of thousands of Iraqi Jews who fled the country in the 1950's and in later years to return.
So far, the answer appears to be no.
Late last year, the council approved proposed legislation that would have allowed thousands of Iraqis who fled or were expelled from the country to reclaim their Iraqi citizenship — unless they were Jewish, council members said. The proposal did not specifically mention Jews, they said, but it contained language that would have kept in place the revocation of citizenship of tens of thousands of Jews by the Iraqi government in 1950.
"My feeling is, as long as the Palestinian problem exists, as long as there is a state of war, then we should not allow the Jews to return," said Muhammad Bahaddin Saladin, a member of the Governing Council. "The minister of defense in Israel is an Iraqi Jew. Should we let him return?"
But the proposal did not become law because the chief American administrator here, L. Paul Bremer III, did not sign it.
Although council members said they had sent it to Mr. Bremer for his approval, his spokesman, Dan Senor, said Mr. Bremer had never seen it. "Ambassador Bremer never considered it, never read it," he said.
Mr. Senor said that international treaties signed by the United States prohibit it from altering a country's citizenship laws.
But some Iraqis say the Americans played a role in trying to settle the Jewish issue. Some governing council members say they met with Mr. Bremer on the proposed law, and a lawyer who helped draft the legislation said he discussed it with a member of the American-led civilian administration.
A spokesman for Iraqi Jews in the United States said he traveled to Baghdad in December and discussed the issue of Jewish repatriation with American officials.
The debate over the possible return of Iraq's Jews reopens a turbulent chapter in the country's history, which included the official harassment and killing of Jews and the flight of tens of thousands of them to Israel.
While the number of Jews in Iraq has dwindled to near extinction, they used to make up one of the oldest and most storied communities in the Diaspora. Many traced their origins to the sixth century B.C. and the release, by Cyrus the Great, of the Jews held captive in Babylon. By 1948, the year of Israel's independence, the Jews of Baghdad numbered nearly 120,000.
The trouble for Iraq's Jews began in the 1930's with the end of the British Mandate, when successive Iraqi governments embarked on discriminatory policies against them. With Israel's independence, the Iraqi government at first discouraged and finally allowed the Jews to emigrate, and in 1950 enacted a law requiring that any Jews leaving for Israel renounce their citizenship.
By the early 1950's, all but a few thousand of Iraq's Jews had fled. Many of those who remained left after 1969, when a dozen men, seven of them Jews, were hanged from lampposts in Liberation Square in Baghdad on charges of treason. Saddam Hussein, then a senior Baath Party member, toured the scene.
Today, the Jewish community in Iraq has dwindled to just 13 members. The old Jewish neighborhoods along the Tigris River have long since been bulldozed.
An estimated 250,000 to 400,000 Iraqi natives and their descendants now live in Israel, with 40,000 more elsewhere, primarily in North America, Britain and Australia.
Despite the history, Iraqi society has seemed to exhibit less of the intense anti-Semitism visible in other countries in the Arab world. With the fall of Mr. Hussein's government, that may be changing.
Members of the Iraqi Governing Council said they first took up the issue of the Jews in December, when they began considering a broad piece of legislation that would allow tens of thousands of Iraqis who had been expelled from the country to return. Among those are thousands of Shiite Muslims and Kurds sent into exile by Mr. Hussein.
Many council members said they favored restoring the revoked citizenship of Iraqis until the discussion turned to the Jews. Some said they were ardently opposed to the idea of allowing the Jews to return. Others said they were more concerned about whether the issue might isolate Iraq among its neighbors in the Arab world.
Council members said they ultimately agreed that that they would allow all Iraqis who had been stripped of their citizenship to return except for the Jews.
"No one said the Jews, but this was the clear intention," said Mahmood Othman, a council member. "The law was written in such a way as to exclude them."
Dara Nuradin, a Kurdish judge on the governing council, said most council members supported preventing Jews from returning to Iraq.
"Because they are Jews and connected to Israel, it's very sensitive," Mr. Nuradin said. "Everybody on the council but two or three people wanted to keep them out."
Some governing council members said they feared a mass return of Jews to Iraq.
The Israeli defense minister mentioned by Mr. Saladin was Yitzhak Mordechai, who was born in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq in 1944. He was Israeli defense minister in 1999.
The specific language used to prohibit Jews from returning is unclear. Neither the Iraqi Governing Council nor the American authorities would provide a copy of the law.
There are indications that American authorities here took part in discussions on the Jewish provisions of the law.
Heskel Haddad, president of American Committee for the Rescue and Resettlement of Iraqi Jews, said he came to Iraq in December to meet with American officials.
"We told the Americans that if Iraq restored citizenship that the Jews lost in 1950, they might come back," he said.
Dr. Haddad, a Manhattan ophthalmologist, said he had talked to hundreds of Iraqi Jews about the possibility of returning. "For so many of us, it is a dream to go back," he said.
Dr. Haddad said he had communicated with an American official in Baghdad named Mike Adler. Mr. Senor, Mr. Bremer's spokesman, said that Mr. Adler had exchanged e-mail messages with Dr. Haddad in which they discussed Jewish claims on property in Iraq and the possibility of Dr. Haddad shipping medical equipment there.
Other council members said that as they were discussing the legislation, they met with Mr. Bremer and sent him a copy of the law for his signature. They said they never heard back.
With the failure of the nationality legislation to be enacted into law, it is unclear what will become of the issue. Some council members said they had discussed the possibility of inserting the language into the country's temporary constitution, which is still under discussion.
But not everyone on the council supported the legislation. Yonadam Kanna, an Assyrian Christian, said he opposed the idea of keeping the Jews out. "I think we should allow everyone to return," Mr. Kanna said. "It should not matter that they are Jewish."
John F. Burns and Jeffrey Gettleman contributed reporting for this article.
My wife's cousin married a Kurdish Jew who grew up in Iraq then moved to Israel. He loved his youth in Kurdish Iraq and says that there were no Muslim/Jewish problems then.
Surely this doesn't mean 13 people? If so, I can't imagine any of the exiles wanting to go back...
In case anyone is still in doubt all Arabs who complain about apartheid policies in Israel are nothing but sub-human, lying, hypocrital sacks of excrement.
They want a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem before taking any action on the return of Jewish citizenship and property? Here's a proposal; give all title and citizenship rights of expelled Jews - from anywhere in the Arab world - to Palestinians. Expel the Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza and let them try to collect.
...and people are scared of mel's movie but those same people support the palestineans
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