One of your own people.

The Giladis – now U.S. Citizens – live in New York, they no longer hold Israeli citizenship. Naeim Gilani refers to himself as an Iraqi, with Iraqi Arabic culture, Jewish religion and American citizenship.

This is an excerpt from his book: Ben Gurion’s Scandals: How the Haganah and Mossad Eliminated Jews.

And yes! You will read all this, because I actually spent the time typing “this” down!

Chapter I: The Jews of Iraq

I write this article for the same reason I wrote my book: to tell the American people, and especially American Jews, that Jews from Islamic lands did not emigrate willingly to Israel; that, to force them to leave, Jews killed Jews; and that, to buy time to confiscate ever more Arab lands, Jews on numerous occasions rejected genuine peace initiatives from their Arab neighbors. I write about what the first prime minister of Israel called “cruel Zionism.” I write about it because I was part of it.

My Story

Of course I thought I knew it all back then. I was young, idealistic, and more than willing to put my life at risk for my convictions. It was 1947 and I wasn’t quite 18 when the Iraqi authorities caught me for smuggling young Iraqi Jews like myself out of Iraq, into Iran, and then on to the Promised Land of the soon-to-be established Israel.

I was an Iraqi Jew in the Zionist underground. My Iraqi jailers did everything they could to extract the names of my co-conspirators. Fifty years later, pain still throbs in my right toe-a reminder of the day my captors used pliers to remove my toenails. On another occasion, they hauled me to the flat roof of the prison, stripped me bare on a frigid January day, then threw a bucket of cold water over me. I was left there, chained to the railing, for hours. But I never once considered giving them the information they wanted. I was a true believer.

My preoccupation during what I refer to as my “two years in hell” was with survival and escape. I had no interest then in the broad sweep of Jewish history in Iraq even though my family had been part of it right from the beginning. We were originally Haroons, a large and important family of the “Babylonian Diaspora.” My ancestors had settled in Iraq more than 2,600 years ago-600 years before Christianity, and 1,200 years before Islam. I am descended from Jews who built the tomb of Yehezkel, a Jewish prophet of pre-biblical times. My town, where I was born in 1929, is Hillah, not far from the ancient site of Babylon.

The original Jews found Babylon, with its nourishing Tigris and Euphrates rivers, to be truly a land of milk, honey, abundance-and opportunity. Although Jews, like other minorities in what became Iraq, experienced periods of oppression and discrimination depending on the rulers of the period, their general trajectory over two and one-half millennia was upward. Under the late Ottoman rule, for example, Jewish social and religious institutions, schools, and medical facilities flourished without outside interference, and Jews were prominent in government and business.

As I sat there in my cell, unaware that a death sentence soon would be handed down against me, I could not have recounted any personal grievances that my family members would have lodged against the government or the Muslim majority. Our family had been treated well and had prospered, first as farmers with some 50,000 acres devoted to rice, dates and Arab horses. Then, with the Ottomans, we bought and purified gold that was shipped to Istanbul and turned into coinage. The Turks were responsible in fact for changing our name to reflect our occupation-we became Khalaschi, meaning “Makers of Pure.”

I did not volunteer the information to my father that I had joined the Zionist underground. He found out several months before I was arrested when he saw me writing Hebrew and using words and expressions unfamiliar to him. He was even more surprised to learn that, yes, I had decided I would soon move to Israel myself. He was scornful. “You’ll come back with your tail between your legs,” he predicted.

About 125,000 Jews left Iraq for Israel in the late 1940s and into 1952, most because they had been lied to and put into a panic by what I came to learn were Zionist bombs. But my mother and father were among the 6,000 who did not go to Israel. Although physically I never did return to Iraq – that bridge had been burned in any event – my heart has made the journey there many, many times. My father had it right.

I was imprisoned at the military camp of Abu-Greib, about 7 miles from Baghdad. When the military court handed down my sentence of death by hanging, I had nothing to lose by attempting the escape I had been planning for many months.

It was a strange recipe for an escape: a dab of butter, an orange peel, and some army clothing that I had asked a friend to buy for me at a flea market. I deliberately ate as much bread as I could to put on fat in anticipation of the day I became 18, when they could formally charge me with a crime and attach the 50-pound ball and chain that was standard prisoner issue.

Later, after my leg had been shackled, I went on a starvation diet that often left me weak-kneed. The pat of butter was to lubricate my leg in preparation for extricating it from the metal band. The orange peel I surreptitiously stuck into the lock on the night of my planned escape, having studied how it could be placed in such a way as to keep the lock from closing.

As the jailers turned to go after locking up, I put on the old army issue that was indistinguishable from what they were wearing-a long, green coat and a stocking cap that I pulled down over much of my face (it was winter). Then I just quietly opened the door and joined the departing group of soldiers as they strode down the hall and outside, and I offered a “good night” to the shift guard as I left. A friend with a car was waiting to speed me away.

Later I made my way to the new state of Israel, arriving in May, 1950. My passport had my name in Arabic and English, but the English couldn’t capture the “kh” sound, so it was rendered simply as Klaski. At the border, the immigration people applied the English version, which had an Eastern European, Ashkenazi ring to it. In one way, this “mistake” was my key to discovering very soon just how the Israeli caste system worked.

They asked me where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. I was the son of a farmer; I knew all the problems of the farm, so I volunteered to go to Dafnah, a farming kibbutz in the high Galilee. I only lasted a few weeks. The new immigrants were given the worst of everything. The food was the same, but that was the only thing that everyone had in common. For the immigrants, bad cigarettes, even bad toothpaste. Everything. I left.

Then, through the Jewish Agency, I was advised to go to al-Majdal (later renamed Ashkelon), an Arab town about 9 miles from Gaza, very close to the Mediterranean. The Israeli government planned to turn it into a farmers’ city, so my farm background would be an asset there.

When I reported to the Labor Office in al-Majdal, they saw that I could read and write Arabic and Hebrew and they said that I could find a good-paying job with the Military Governor’s office. The Arabs were under the authority of these Israeli Military Governors. A clerk handed me a bunch of forms in Arabic and Hebrew. Now it dawned on me. Before Israel could establish its farmers’ city, it had to rid al-Majdal of its indigenous Palestinians. The forms were petitions to the United Nations Inspectors asking for transfer out of Israel to Gaza, which was under Egyptian control.

I read over the petition. In signing, the Palestinian would be saying that he was of sound mind and body and was making the request for transfer free of pressure or duress. Of course, there was no way that they would leave without being pressured to do so. These families had been there hundreds of years, as farmers, primitive artisans, weavers. The Military Governor prohibited them from pursuing their livelihoods, just penned them up until they lost hope of resuming their normal lives. That’s when they signed to leave.

I was there and heard their grief. “Our hearts are in pain when we look at the orange trees that we planted with our own hands. Please let us go, let us give water to those trees. God will not be pleased with us if we leave His trees untended.” I asked the Military Governor to give them relief, but he said, “No, we want them to leave.”

I could no longer be part of this oppression and I left. Those Palestinians who didn’t sign up for transfers were taken by force-just put in trucks and dumped in Gaza. About four thousand people were driven from al-Majdal in one way or another. The few who remained were collaborators with the Israeli authorities.

Subsequently, I wrote letters trying to get a government job elsewhere and I got many immediate responses asking me to come for an interview. Then they would discover that my face didn’t match my Polish/Ashkenazi name. They would ask if I spoke Yiddish or Polish, and when I said I didn’t, they would ask where I came by a Polish name. Desperate for a good job, I would usually say that I thought my great-grandfather was from Poland. I was advised time and again that “we’ll give you a call.”

Eventually, three to four years after coming to Israel, I changed my name to Giladi, which is close to the code name, Gilad, that I had in the Zionist underground. Klaski wasn’t doing me any good anyway, and my Eastern friends were always chiding me about the name they knew didn’t go with my origins as an Iraqi Jew.

I was disillusioned at what I found in the Promised Land, disillusioned personally, disillusioned at the institutionalized racism, disillusioned at what I was beginning to learn about Zionism’s cruelties. The principal interest Israel had in Jews from Islamic countries was as a supply of cheap labor, especially for the farm work that was beneath the urbanized Eastern European Jews. Ben Gurion needed the “Oriental” Jews to farm the thousands of acres of land left by Palestinians who were driven out by Israeli forces in 1948.

And I began to find out about the barbaric methods used to rid the fledgling state of as many Palestinians as possible. The world recoils today at the thought of bacteriological warfare, but Israel was probably the first to actually use it in the Middle East. In the 1948 war, Jewish forces would empty Arab villages of their populations, often by threats, sometimes by just gunning down a half-dozen unarmed Arabs as examples to the rest. To make sure the Arabs couldn’t return to make a fresh life for themselves in these villages, the Israelis put typhus and dysentery bacteria into the water wells.

Uri Mileshtin, an official historian for the Israeli Defense Force, has written and spoken about the use of bacteriological agents. According to Mileshtin, Moshe Dayan, a division commander at the time, gave orders in 1948 to remove Arabs from their villages, bulldoze their homes, and render water wells unusable with typhus and dysentery bacteria.

Acre was so situated that it could practically defend itself with one big gun, so the Haganah put bacteria into the spring that fed the town. The spring was called Capri and it ran from the north near a kibbutz. The Haganah put typhus bacteria into the water going to Acre, the people got sick, and the Jewish forces occupied Acre. This worked so well that they sent a Haganah division dressed as Arabs into Gaza, where there were Egyptian forces, and the Egyptians caught them putting two cans of bacteria, typhus and dysentery, into the water supply in wanton disregard of the civilian population. “In war, there is no sentiment,” one of the captured Haganah men was quoted as saying.

My activism in Israel began shortly after I received a letter from the Socialist/Zionist Party asking me to help with their Arabic newspaper. When I showed up at their offices at Central House in Tel Aviv, I asked around to see just where I should report. I showed the letter to a couple of people there and, without even looking at it, they would motion me away with the words, “Room No. 8.” When I saw that they weren’t even reading the letter, I inquired of several others. But the response was the same, “Room No. 8,” with not a glance at the paper I put in front of them.

So I went to Room 8 and saw that it was the Department of Jews from Islamic Countries. I was disgusted and angry. Either I am a member of the party or I’m not. Do I have a different ideology or different politics because I am an Arab Jew? It’s segregation, I thought, just like a Negroes’ Department. I turned around and walked out. That was the start of my open protests. That same year I organized a demonstration in Ashkelon against Ben Gurion’s racist policies and 10,000 people turned out.

There wasn’t much opportunity for those of us who were second class citizens to do much about it when Israel was on a war footing with outside enemies. After the 1967 war, I was in the Army myself and served in the Sinai when there was continued fighting along the Suez Canal. But the cease-fire with Egypt in 1970 gave us our opening. We took to the streets and organized politically to demand equal rights. If it’s our country, if we were expected to risk our lives in a border war, then we expected equal treatment.

We mounted the struggle so tenaciously and received so much publicity that the Israeli government tried to discredit our movement by calling us “Israel’s Black Panthers.” They were thinking in racist terms, really, in assuming the Israeli public would reject an organization whose ideology was being compared to that of radical blacks in the United States. But we saw that what we were doing was no different than what blacks in the United States were fighting against-segregation, discrimination, unequal treatment. Rather than reject the label, we adopted it proudly. I had posters of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela and other civil rights activists plastered all over my office.

With the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the Israeli-condoned Sabra and Shatilla massacres, I had had enough of Israel. I became a United States citizen and made certain to revoke my Israeli citizenship. I could never have written and published my book in Israel, not with the censorship they would impose.

Even in America, I had great difficulty finding a publisher because many are subject to pressures of one kind or another from Israel and its friends. I ended up paying $60,000 from my own pocket to publish Ben Gurion’s Scandals: How the Haganah & the Mossad Eliminated Jews, virtually the entire proceeds from having sold my house in Israel.

I still was afraid that the printer would back out or that legal proceedings would be initiated to stop its publication, like the Israeli government did in an attempt to prevent former Mossad case officer Victor Ostrovsky from publishing his first book. Ben Gurion’s Scandals had to be translated into English from two languages. I wrote in Hebrew when I was in Israel and hoped to publish the book there, and I wrote in Arabic when I was completing the book after coming to the U.S. But I was so worried that something would stop publication that I told the printer not to wait for the translations to be thoroughly checked and proofread. Now I realize that the publicity of a lawsuit would just have created a controversial interest in the book.

I am using bank vault storage for the valuable documents that back up what I have written. These documents, including some that I illegally copied from the archives at Yad Vashem, confirm what I saw myself, what I was told by other witnesses, and what reputable historians and others have written concerning the Zionist bombings in Iraq, Arab peace overtures that were rebuffed, and incidents of violence and death inflicted by Jews on Jews in the cause of creating Israel.

The Riots of 1941

If, as I have said, my family in Iraq was not persecuted personally and I knew no deprivation as a member of the Jewish minority, what led me to the steps of the gallows as a member of the Zionist underground? To answer that question, it is necessary to establish the context of the massacre that occurred in Baghdad on June 1, 1941, when several hundred Iraqi Jews were killed in riots involving junior officers of the Iraqi army. I was 12 years of age and many of those killed were my friends. I was angry, and very confused.

What I didn’t know at the time was that the riots most likely were stirred up by the British, in collusion with a pro-British Iraqi leadership.

With the breakup of the Ottoman Empire following WW I, Iraq came under British “tutelage.” Amir Faisal, son of Sharif Hussein who had led the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman sultan, was brought in from Mecca by the British to become King of Iraq in 1921. Many Jews were appointed to key administrative posts, including that of economics minister. Britain retained final authority over domestic and external affairs. Britain’s pro-Zionist attitude in Palestine, however, triggered a growing anti-Zionist backlash in Iraq, as it did in all Arab countries. Writing at the end of 1934, Sir Francis Humphreys, Britain’s Ambassador in Baghdad, noted that, while before WW I Iraqi Jews had enjoyed a more favorable position than any other minority in the country, since then “Zionism has sown dissension between Jews and Arabs, and a bitterness has grown up between the two peoples which did not previously exist.”

King Faisal died in 1933. He was succeeded by his son Ghazi, who died in a motor car accident in 1939. The crown then passed to Ghazi’s 4-year-old son, Faisal II, whose uncle, Abd al-Ilah, was named regent. Abd al-Ilah selected Nouri el-Said as prime minister. El-Said supported the British and, as hatred of the British grew, he was forced from office in March 1940 by four senior army officers who advocated Iraq’s independence from Britain. Calling themselves the Golden Square, the officers compelled the regent to name as prime minister Rashid Ali al-Kilani, leader of the National Brotherhood party.

The time was 1940 and Britain was reeling from a strong German offensive. Al-Kilani and the Golden Square saw this as their opportunity to rid themselves of the British once and for all. Cautiously they began to negotiate for German support, which led the pro-British regent Abd al-Ilah to dismiss al-Kilani in January 1941. By April, however, the Golden Square officers had reinstated the prime minister.

This provoked the British to send a military force into Basra on April 12, 1941. Basra, Iraq’s second largest city, had a Jewish population of 30,000. Most of these Jews made their livings from import/export, money changing, retailing, as workers in the airports, railways, and ports, or as senior government employees.

On the same day, April 12, supporters of the pro-British regent notified the Jewish leaders that the regent wanted to meet with them. As was their custom, the leaders brought flowers for the regent. Contrary to custom, however, the cars that drove them to the meeting place dropped them off at the site where the British soldiers were concentrated.

Photographs of the Jews appeared in the following day’s newspapers with the banner “Basra Jews Receive British Troops with Flowers.” That same day, April 13, groups of angry Arab youths set about to take revenge against the Jews. Several Muslim notables in Basra heard of the plan and calmed things down. Later, it was learned that the regent was not in Basra at all and that the matter was a provocation by his pro-British supporters to bring about an ethnic war in order to give the British army a pretext to intervene.

The British continued to land more forces in and around Basra. On May 7, 1941, their Gurkha unit, composed of Indian soldiers from that ethnic group, occupied Basra’s el-Oshar quarter, a neighborhood with a large Jewish population. The soldiers, led by British officers, began looting. Many shops in the commercial district were plundered. Private homes were broken into. Cases of attempted rape were reported. Local residents, Jews and Muslims, responded with pistols and old rifles, but their bullets were no match for the soldiers’ Tommy Guns.

Afterwards, it was learned that the soldiers acted with the acquiescence, if not the blessing, of their British commanders. (It should be remembered that the Indian soldiers, especially those of the Gurkha unit, were known for their discipline, and it is highly unlikely they would have acted so riotously without orders.) The British goal clearly was to create chaos and to blacken the image of the pro-nationalist regime in Baghdad, thereby giving the British forces reason to proceed to the capital and to overthrow the al-Kilani government.

Baghdad fell on May 30. Al-Kilani fled to Iran, along with the Golden Square officers. Radio stations run by the British reported that Regent Abd al-Ilah would be returning to the city and that thousands of Jews and others were planning to welcome him. What inflamed young Iraqis against the Jews most, however, was the radio announcer Yunas Bahri on the German station “Berlin,” who reported in Arabic that Jews from Palestine were fighting alongside the British against Iraqi soldiers near the city of Faluja. The report was false.

On Sunday, June 1, unarmed fighting broke out in Baghdad between Jews who were still celebrating their Shabuoth holiday and young Iraqis who thought the Jews were celebrating the return of the pro-British regent. That evening, a group of Iraqis stopped a bus, removed the Jewish passengers, murdered one and fatally wounded a second.

About 8:30 the following morning, some 30 individuals in military and police uniforms opened fire along el-Amin street, a small downtown street whose jewelry, tailor and grocery shops were Jewish-owned. By 11 a.m., mobs of Iraqis with knives, switchblades and clubs were attacking Jewish homes in the area.

The riots continued throughout Monday, June 2. During this time, many Muslims rose to defend their Jewish neighbors, while some Jews successfully defended themselves. There were 124 killed and 400 injured, according to a report written by a Jewish Agency messenger who was in Iraq at the time. Other estimates, possibly less reliable, put the death toll higher, as many as 500, with from 650 to 2,000 injured. From 500 to 1,300 stores and more than 1,000 homes and apartments were looted.

Who was behind the rioting in the Jewish quarter?

Yosef Meir, one of the most prominent activists in the Zionist underground movement in Iraq, known then as Yehoshafat, claims it was the British. Meir, who now works for the Israeli Defense Ministry, argues that, in order to make it appear that the regent was returning as the savior who would reestablish law and order, the British stirred up the riots against the most vulnerable and visible segment in the city, the Jews. And, not surprisingly, the riots ended as soon as the regent’s loyal soldiers entered the capital.
My own investigations as a journalist lead me to believe Meir is correct. Furthermore, I think his claims should be seen as based on documents in the archives of the Israeli Defense Ministry, the agency that published his book. Yet, even before his book came out, I had independent confirmation from a man I met in Iran in the late Forties.

His name was Michael Timosian, an Iraqi Armenian. When I met him he was working as a male nurse at the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in Abadan in the south of Iran. On June 2, 1941, however, he was working at the Baghdad hospital where many of the riot victims were brought. Most of these victims were Jews.

Timosian said he was particularly interested in two patients whose conduct did not follow local custom. One had been hit by a bullet in his shoulder, the other by a bullet in his right knee. After the doctor removed the bullets, the staff tried to change their blood-soaked cloths. But the two men fought off their efforts, pretending to be speechless, although tests showed they could hear. To pacify them, the doctor injected them with anesthetics and, as they were sleeping, Timosian changed their cloths. He discovered that one of them had around his neck an identification tag of the type used by British troops, while the other had tattoos with Indian script on his right arm along with the familiar sword of the Gurkha.

The next day when Timosian showed up for work, he was told that a British officer, his sergeant and two Indian Gurkha soldiers had come to the hospital early that morning. Staff members overheard the Gurkha soldiers talking with the wounded patients, who were not as dumb as they had pretended. The patients saluted the visitors, covered themselves with sheets and, without signing the required release forms, left the hospital with their visitors.

Today there is no doubt in my mind that the anti-Jewish riots of 1941 were orchestrated by the British for geopolitical ends. David Kimche is certainly a man who was in a position to know the truth, and he has spoken publicly about British culpability. Kimche had been with British Intelligence during WW II and with the Mossad after the war. Later he became Director General of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, the position he held in 1982 when he addressed a forum at the British Institute for International Affairs in London.

In responding to hostile questions about Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and the refugee camp massacres in Beirut, Kimche went on the attack, reminding the audience that there was scant concern in the British Foreign Office when British Gurkha units participated in the murder of 500 Jews in the streets of Baghdad in 1941.

The Bombings of 1950-1951

The anti-Jewish riots of 1941 did more than create a pretext for the British to enter Baghdad to reinstate the pro-British regent and his pro-British prime minister, Nouri el-Said. They also gave the Zionists in Palestine a pretext to set up a Zionist underground in Iraq, first in Baghdad, then in other cities such as Basra, Amara, Hillah, Diwaneia, Abril and Karkouk.

Following WW II, a succession of governments held brief power in Iraq. Zionist conquests in Palestine, particularly the massacre of Palestinians in the village of Deir Yassin, emboldened the anti-British movement in Iraq. When the Iraqi government signed a new treaty of friendship with London in January 1948, riots broke out all over the country. The treaty was quickly abandoned and Baghdad demanded removal of the British military mission that had run Iraq’s army for 27 years.

Later in 1948, Baghdad sent an army detachment to Palestine to fight the Zionists, and when Israel declared independence in May, Iraq closed the pipeline that fed its oil to Haifa’s refinery. Abd al-Ilah, however, was still regent and the British quisling, Nouri el-Said, was back as prime minister. I was in the Abu-Greib prison in 1948, where I would remain until my escape to Iran in September 1949.

Six months later-the exact date was March 19, 1950-a bomb went off at the American Cultural Center and Library in Baghdad, causing property damage and injuring a number of people. The center was a favorite meeting place for young Jews.

The first bomb thrown directly at Jews occurred on April 8, 1950, at 9:15 p.m. A car with three young passengers hurled the grenade at Baghdad’s El-Dar El-Bida Café, where Jews were celebrating Passover. Four people were seriously injured. That night leaflets were distributed calling on Jews to leave Iraq immediately.

The next day, many Jews, most of them poor with nothing to lose, jammed emigration offices to renounce their citizenship and to apply for permission to leave for Israel. So many applied, in fact, that the police had to open registration offices in Jewish schools and synagogues.

On May 10, at 3 a.m., a grenade was tossed in the direction of the display window of the Jewish-owned Beit-Lawi Automobile Company, destroying part of the building. No casualties were reported.

On June 3, 1950, another grenade was tossed from a speeding car in the El-Batawin area of Baghdad where most rich Jews and middle class Iraqis lived. No one was hurt, but following the explosion Zionist activists sent telegrams to Israel requesting that the quota for immigration from Iraq be increased.

On June 5, at 2:30 a.m., a bomb exploded next to the Jewish-owned Stanley Shashua building on El-Rashid street, resulting in property damage but no casualties.

On January 14, 1951, at 7 p.m., a grenade was thrown at a group of Jews outside the Masouda Shem-Tov Synagogue. The explosive struck a high-voltage cable, electrocuting three Jews, one a young boy, Itzhak Elmacher, and wounding over 30 others. Following the attack, the exodus of Jews jumped to between 600-700 per day.

Zionist propagandists still maintain that the bombs in Iraq were set off by anti-Jewish Iraqis who wanted Jews out of their country. The terrible truth is that the grenades that killed and maimed Iraqi Jews and damaged their property were thrown by Zionist Jews.

Among the most important documents in my book, I believe, are copies of two leaflets published by the Zionist underground calling on Jews to leave Iraq. One is dated March 16, 1950, the other April 8, 1950.

The difference between these two is critical. Both indicate the date of publication, but only the April 8th leaflet notes the time of day: 4 p.m. Why the time of day? Such a specification was unprecedented. Even the investigating judge, Salaman El-Beit, found it suspicious. Did the 4 p.m. writers want an alibi for a bombing they knew would occur five hours later? If so, how did they know about the bombing? The judge concluded they knew because a connection existed between the Zionist underground and the bomb throwers.

This, too, was the conclusion of Wilbur Crane Eveland, a former senior officer in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), whom I had the opportunity to meet in New York in 1988. In his book, Ropes of Sand, whose publication the CIA opposed, Eveland writes:

In attempts 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 synagogues. Soon leaflets began to appear urging Jews to flee to Israel… Although the Iraqi police later provided our embassy with evidence to show that the synagogue and library bombings, as well as the anti-Jewish and anti-American leaflet campaigns, had been the work of an underground Zionist organization, 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.”

Eveland doesn’t detail the evidence linking the Zionists to the attacks, but in my book I do. In 1955, for example, I organized in Israel a panel of Jewish attorneys of Iraqi origin to handle claims of Iraqi Jews who still had property in Iraq. One well known attorney, who asked that I not give his name, confided in me that the laboratory tests in Iraq had confirmed that the anti-American leaflets found at the American Cultural Center bombing were typed on the same typewriter and duplicated on the same stenciling machine as the leaflets distributed by the Zionist movement just before the April 8th bombing.

Tests also showed that the type of explosive used in the Beit-Lawi attack matched traces of explosives found in the suitcase of an Iraqi Jew by the name of Yosef Basri. Basri, a lawyer, together with Shalom Salih, a shoemaker, would be put on trial for the attacks in December 1951 and executed the following month. Both men were members of Hashura, the military arm of the Zionist underground. Salih ultimately confessed that he, Basri and a third man, Yosef Habaza, carried out the attacks.

By the time of the executions in January 1952, all but 6,000 of an estimated 125,000 Iraqi Jews had fled to Israel. Moreover, the pro-British, pro-Zionist puppet el-Said saw to it that all of their possessions were frozen, including their cash assets. (There were ways of getting Iraqi dinars out, but when the immigrants went to exchange them in Israel they found that the Israeli government kept 50 percent of the value.) Even those Iraqi Jews who had not registered to emigrate, but who happened to be abroad, faced loss of their nationality if they didn’t return within a specified time. An ancient, cultured, prosperous community had been uprooted and its people transplanted to a land dominated by East European Jews, whose culture was not only foreign but entirely hateful to them.

The Ultimate Criminals

Zionist Leaders.

From the start they knew that in order to establish a Jewish state they had to expel the indigenous Palestinian population to the neighboring Islamic states and import Jews from these same states.

- Theodor Herzl, the architect of Zionism, thought it could be done by social engineering. In his diary entry for 12 June 1885, he wrote that Zionist settlers would have to “spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country.”

- Vladimir Jabotinsky, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s ideological progenitor, frankly admitted that such a transfer of populations could only be brought about by force.

- David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, told a Zionist Conference in 1937 that any proposed Jewish state would have to “transfer Arab populations out of the area, if possible of their own free will, if not by coercion.” After 750,000 Palestinians were uprooted and their lands confiscated in 1948-49, Ben Gurion had to look to the Islamic countries for Jews who could fill the resultant cheap labor market. “Emissaries” were smuggled into these countries to “convince” Jews to leave either by trickery or fear.

In the case of Iraq, both methods were used: uneducated Jews were told of a Messianic Israel in which the blind see, the lame walk, and onions grow as big as melons; educated Jews had bombs thrown at them.

A few years after the bombings, in the early 1950s, a book was published in Iraq, in Arabic, titled Venom of the Zionist Viper. The author was one of the Iraqi investigators of the 1950-51 bombings and, in his book, he implicates the Israelis, specifically one of the emissaries sent by Israel, Mordechai Ben-Porat. As soon as the book came out, all copies just disappeared, even from libraries. The word was that agents of the Israeli Mossad, working through the U.S. Embassy, bought up all the books and destroyed them. I tried on three different occasions to have one sent to me in Israel, but each time Israeli censors in the post office intercepted it.

British Leaders.

Britain always acted in its best colonial interests. For that reason Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour sent his famous 1917 letter to Lord Rothschild in exchange for Zionist support in WW I. During WW II the British were primarily concerned with keeping their client states in the Western camp, while Zionists were most concerned with the immigration of European Jews to Palestine, even if this meant cooperating with the Nazis. (In my book I document numerous instances of such dealings by Ben Gurion and the Zionist leadership.)

After WW II the international chessboard pitted communists against capitalists. In many countries, including the United States and Iraq, Jews represented a large part of the Communist party. In Iraq, hundreds of Jews of the working intelligentsia occupied key positions in the hierarchy of the Communist and Socialist parties. To keep their client countries in the capitalist camp, Britain had to make sure these governments had pro-British leaders. And if, as in Iraq, these leaders were overthrown, then an anti-Jewish riot or two could prove a useful pretext to invade the capital and reinstate the “right” leaders.

Moreover, if the possibility existed of removing the communist influence from Iraq by transferring the whole Jewish community to Israel, well then, why not? Particularly if the leaders of Israel and Iraq conspired in the deed.

Iraqi Leaders.

Both the regent Abd al-Ilah and his prime minister Nouri el-Said took directions from London. Toward the end of 1948, el-Said, who had already met with Israel’s Prime Minister Ben Gurion in Vienna, began discussing with his Iraqi and British associates the need for an exchange of populations. Iraq would send the Jews in military trucks to Israel via Jordan, and Iraq would take in some of the Palestinians Israel had been evicting. His proposal included mutual confiscation of property. London nixed the idea as too radical.

El-Said then went to his back-up plan and began to create the conditions that would make the lives of Iraqi Jews so miserable they would leave for Israel. Jewish government employees were fired from their jobs; Jewish merchants were denied import/export licenses; police began to arrest Jews for trivial reasons. Still the Jews did not leave in any great numbers.

In September 1949, Israel sent the spy Mordechai Ben-Porat, the one mentioned in Venom of the Zionist Viper, to Iraq. One of the first things Ben-Porat did was to approach el-Said and promise him financial incentives to have a law enacted that would lift the citizenship of Iraqi Jews.

Soon after, Zionist and Iraqi representatives began formulating a rough draft of the bill, according to the model dictated by Israel through its agents in Baghdad. The bill was passed by the Iraqi parliament in March 1950. It empowered the government to issue one-time exit visas to Jews wishing to leave the country. In March, the bombings began.

Sixteen years later, the Israeli magazine Haolam Hazeh, published by Uri Avnery, then a Knesset member, accused Ben-Porat of the Baghdad bombings. Ben-Porat, who would become a Knesset member himself, denied the charge, but never sued the magazine for libel. And Iraqi Jews in Israel still call him Morad Abu al-Knabel, Mordechai of the Bombs.

As I said, all this went well beyond the comprehension of a teenager. I knew Jews were being killed and an organization existed that could lead us to the Promised Land. So I helped in the exodus to Israel. Later, on occasions, I would bump into some of these Iraqi Jews in Israel. Not infrequently they’d express the sentiment that they could kill me for what I had done.

Opportunities for Peace

After the Israeli attack on the Jordanian village of Qibya in October, 1953, Ben Gurion went into voluntary exile at the Sedeh Boker kibbutz in the Negev. The Labor party then used to organize many buses for people to go visit him there, where they would see the former prime minister working with sheep. But that was only for show. Really he was writing his diary and continuing to be active behind the scenes. I went on such a tour.

We were told not to try to speak to Ben Gurion, but when I saw him, I asked why, since Israel is a democracy with a parliament, does it not have a constitution? Ben Gurion said, “Look, boy”-I was 24 at the time-”if we have a constitution, we have to write in it the border of our country. And this is not our border, my dear.” I asked, “Then where is the border?” He said, “Wherever the Sahal will come, this is the border.” Sahal is the Israeli army.

Ben Gurion told the world that Israel accepted the partition and the Arabs rejected it. Then Israel took half of the land that was promised to the Arab state. And still he was saying it was not enough. Israel needed more land. How can a country make peace with its neighbors if it wants to take their land? How can a country demand to be secure if it won’t say what borders it will be satisfied with? For such a country, peace would be an inconvenience.

I know now that from the beginning many Arab leaders wanted to make peace with Israel, but Israel always refused. Ben Gurion covered this up with propaganda. He said that the Arabs wanted to drive Israel into the sea and he called Gamal Abdel Nasser the Hitler of the Middle East whose foremost intent was to destroy Israel. He wanted America and Great Britain to treat Nasser like a pariah.

In 1954, it seemed that America was getting less critical of Nasser. Then during a three-week period in July, several terrorist bombs were set off: at the United States Information Agency offices in Cairo and Alexandria, a British-owned theater, and the central post office in Cairo. An attempt to firebomb a cinema in Alexandria failed when the bomb went off in the pocket of one of the perpetrators. That led to the discovery that the terrorists were not anti-Western Egyptians, but were instead Israeli spies bent on souring the warming relationship between Egypt and the United States in what came to be known as the Lavon Affair.

Ben Gurion was still living on his kibbutz. Moshe Sharett as prime minister was in contact with Abdel Nasser through the offices of Lord Maurice Orbach of Great Britain. Sharett asked Nasser to be lenient with the captured spies, and Nasser did all that was in his power to prevent a deterioration of the situation between the two countries.

Then Ben Gurion returned as Defense Minister in February, 1955. Later that month Israeli troops attacked Egyptian military camps and Palestinian refugees in Gaza, killing 54 and injuring many more. The very night of the attack, Lord Orbach was on his way to deliver a message to Nasser, but was unable to get through because of the military action. When Orbach telephoned, Nasser’s secretary told him that the attack proved that Israel did not want peace and that he was wasting his time as a mediator.

In November, Ben Gurion announced in the Knesset that he was willing to meet with Abdel Nasser anywhere and at any time for the sake of peace and understanding. The next morning the Israeli military attacked an Egyptian military camp in the Sabaha region.

Although Nasser felt pessimistic about achieving peace with Israel, he continued to send other mediators to try. One was through the American Friends Service Committee; another via the Prime Minister of Malta, Dom Minthoff; and still another through Marshall Tito of Yugoslavia.

One that looked particularly promising was through Dennis Hamilton, editor of The London Times. Nasser told Hamilton that if only he could sit and talk with Ben Gurion for two or three hours, they would be able to settle the conflict and end the state of war between the two countries. When word of this reached Ben Gurion, he arranged to meet with Hamilton. They decided to pursue the matter with the Israeli ambassador in London, Arthur Luria, as liaison. On Hamilton’s third trip to Egypt, Nasser met him with the text of a Ben Gurion speech stating that Israel would not give up an inch of land and would not take back a single refugee. Hamilton knew that Ben Gurion with his mouth had undermined a peace mission and missed an opportunity to settle the Israeli-Arab conflict.

Nasser even sent his friend Ibrahim Izat of the Ruz El Yusuf weekly paper to meet with Israeli leaders in order to explore the political atmosphere and find out why the attacks were taking place if Israel really wanted peace. One of the men Izat met with was Yigal Yadin, a former Chief of Staff of the army who wrote this letter to me on 14 January 1982:

Dear Mr. Giladi:

Your letter reminded me of an event which I nearly forgot and of which I remember only a few details.

Ibrahim Izat came to me if I am not mistaken under the request of the Foreign Ministry or one of its branches; he stayed in my house and we spoke for many hours. I do not remember him saying that he came on a mission from Nasser, but I have no doubt that he let it be understood that this was with his knowledge or acquiescence…

When Nasser decided to nationalize the Suez Canal in spite of opposition from the British and the French, Radio Cairo announced in Hebrew:

If the Israeli government is not influenced by the British and the French imperialists, it will eventually result in greater understanding between the two states, and Egypt will reconsider Israel’s request to have access to the Suez Canal.

Israel responded that it had no designs on Egypt, but at that very moment Israeli representatives were in France planning the three-way attack that was to take place in October, 1956.

All the while, Ben Gurion continued to talk about the Hitler of the Middle East. This brainwashing went on until late September, 1970, when Gamal Abdel Nasser passed away. Then, miracle of miracles, David Ben Gurion told the press:

A week before he died I received an envoy from Abdel Nasser who asked to meet with me urgently in order to solve the problems between Israel and the Arab world.

The public was surprised because they didn’t know that Abdel Nasser had wanted this all along, but Israel sabotaged it.

Nasser was not the only Arab leader who wanted to make peace with Israel. There were many others. Brigadier General Abdel Karim Qasem, before he seized power in Iraq in July, 1958, headed an underground organization that sent a delegation to Israel to make a secret agreement. Ben Gurion refused even to see him. I learned about this when I was a journalist in Israel. But whenever I tried to publish even a small part of it, the censor would stamp it “Not Allowed.”

Now, in Netanyahu, we are witnessing another attempt by an Israeli prime minister to fake an interest in making peace. Netanyahu and the Likud are setting Arafat up by demanding that he institute more and more repressive measures in the interest of Israeli “security.” Sooner or later I suspect the Palestinians will have had enough of Arafat’s strong-arm methods as Israel’s quisling-and he’ll be killed. Then the Israeli government will say, “See, we were ready to give him everything. You can’t trust those Arabs-they kill each other. Now there’s no one to even talk to about peace.”

Conclusion

Alexis de Tocqueville once observed that it is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth. Certainly it has been easier for the world to accept the Zionist lie that Jews were evicted from Muslim lands because of anti-Semitism, and that Israelis, never the Arabs, were the pursuers of peace. The truth is far more discerning: bigger players on the world stage were pulling the strings.

These players, I believe, should be held accountable for their crimes, particularly when they willfully terrorized, dispossessed and killed innocent people on the altar of some ideological imperative.

I believe, too, that the descendants of these leaders have a moral responsibility to compensate the victims and their descendants, and to do so not just with reparations, but by setting the historical record straight.
That is why I established a panel of inquiry in Israel to seek reparations for Iraqi Jews who had been forced to leave behind their property and possessions in Iraq. That is why I joined the Black Panthers in confronting the Israeli government with the grievances of the Jews in Israel who came from Islamic lands. And that is why I have written my book and this article: to set the historical record straight.

We Jews from Islamic lands did not leave our ancestral homes because of any natural enmity between Jews and Muslims. And we Arabs – I say Arab because that is the language my wife and I still speak at home – we Arabs on numerous occasions have sought peace with the State of the Jews. And finally, as a U.S. citizen and taxpayer, let me say that we Americans need to stop supporting racial discrimination in Israel and the cruel expropriation of lands in the West Bank, Gaza, South Lebanon and the Golan Heights.

For Chapter II and the rest of the book, you can find it here

Since several generations, we have an unsolved conflict in the Middle East, the conflict of Israel-Palestine. It resulted into several conventional wars and many acts of terrorism and violence in this region.

What concerns the role of both Islamic and Jewish fundamentalists, the roots of animosities are not on the shoulder of one or another side, but both belligerent sides:

- In the case of Israel, since its existence in 1948, whoever governs in Israel, the policy is more or less influenced by Zionist ambitions. Zionism propagates the idea that the whole region is a sacred homeland, where allegedly the early Jewish nation originated over 3,200 years ago. As such, Zionism as the first fundamentalist ideology goes so far to claim that the entire region belongs to Israel. It explicitly ignores the rights of many vibrant communities who have been living there during the last 3000 years.

- The counter-pole to the Zionism is the advent of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its protégés in Palestine and Lebanon who all dream of destruction of Israel and creation of God’s state in its place. They regard the territory of Israel, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank as an inalienable “Islamic waghf” (Islamic assets), which should never be surrendered to non-Muslims.

It is true, the both Islamists, militant movements fight to push back Israel from their occupied territories, but at the same time sow seeds of Islamism in these territories. They do not intend to free their people, but to impose the yoke of a God’s state on this region. The God’s state dreamed by Hamas is derived from a dictatorial belief system; the one which is now largely rejected by a growing majority of Iranians.

Despite that the Islamic revolution of Iran failed, the Islamic radicalism of which it was a projection continues to be an aggressive ideology and imposes problems for the entire region. What now bothers all Palestine-loving people is the future of this land. In other words, not only Israeli occupation, but also a take-over of Islamists in Palestine is a serious alarm for Palestine. The international community must help Palestine to attend its deserved rights of independence while helping democratic and secular forces of Palestine to dam a rise of new Islamic state in the region.

The plague of Islamism in Palestine was reborn with Hamas founded in 1987 in Gaza by both Shaikh Ahmad Jassin and started its existence with its jihadi attacks on both military and civil targets in Israel.

Though Hamas is a Sunni organisation, but is a protégé of the IRI; it follows a strict charter which is not different from IRI’s official policy towards Israel. According to this charter the State of Israel must be wiped off the region and replaced with an Islamic state.

Furthermore, Hamas will not accept any non-Islamic state in Palestine and is in permanent conflicts with secular forces of Palestine. Hamas, like all Islamists, opposes any peace process with Israel; it regards such a process a “betrayal of God’s will”. This is its fundamental difference with the PLO which in 1988 recognised Israel’s sovereignty, Hamas’s last success in the Palestinian elections is not a consequence of the rise of Islamism linked to the Iranian revolution, but rather a related reaction to the deep frustration of Palestinians who were disappointed from the West. This frustration is characterised by the continued postponement in the resolution of Palestinian conflicts and US foreign policy in their absolute support for Israel.

The Islamists, wherever they are, guided or inspired by the IRI, stage the question of state at the middle of their battleground and the legitimacy of non-Islamic a state cannot be ignored. Therefore in the case of Palestinian independence the PLO or any secular force will not be considered as a legitimate state.

The second IRI’s proxy-movement in this region is Hezbollah. It was formed in 1982 by the IRI’s officials and the Revolutionary Guards Corps. It was to import the “Islamic” revolution of Iran in the region. The movement was logistically helped to fight Israeli occupation following the 1982 Lebanon war. Hezbollah’s ideology is based on the Shiite Islam, specifically in the concept of absolute power of supreme leader or “Welayat-e-Faqih” a totalitarian belief system which has been forth by Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran (the IRI). Hezbollah’s strength is enhanced by the military and financial backing of the IRI. Terror is its principal weapon and Islamism its only ideology. It follows a jihadist and Islamist policy dictated by IRI’s officials.

Lebanon with only 40 percent Shiites is not a cosy cradle of Mullahs. Hezbollah has taken this fact into consideration; therefore, a God’s state, on the IRI’s model, is not officially demanded. However, it claims that an Islamic state requires the consent of the people, and since Lebanon remains a religiously and ideologically heterogeneous society, their political platform favours the introduction of an Islamic state in Lebanon by non-militant means.

All trilateral parts of conflicts, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Zionism, reject constantly peaceful solutions. All of them believe that Palestine is a consecrated land for their future generations and only so it must exist until Judgement Day. If all of them are at the height of their radicalism, they will gender an eternally vicious spiral of war and violence.

The two Islamist movements of Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon are along with aggressive Zionism the main obstacle for peace in this region. The two antagonistic poles have different charges and sacred altars. Neither Zionism’s sacred expansionism nor Islamism’s God’s state can guarantee peace and co-existence in this region.

It is to mention that Israel is implicitly authorised by the US to continue its animosity not only against Islamist groups, but also the legitimate rights of all Palestinians.

Now, the least the international community is to encourage both sides to achieve peace and co-existence based on the UN repeated resolutions and bilateral agreements. If this conflict is to be stopped, the international community must defend the historically rights of Palestinians to install their UN proposed state. The Lack of an international consensus can be interpreted as a green light to continue the conflict.

What concerns Israel and Palestine, a durably peaceful co-existence of all peoples in the region can be guaranteed when only the democrats and seculars are the official peace-makers of both sides.

Israeli crimes against civilians date many years. Israel attacked in Jan 2008 Gaza and imposed an embargo on “Hamas-ruled area”. In response to the almost “rocket fire from the territory onto neighbouring Israeli towns and villages”, the border crossings into Gaza was closed. In reality military atrocities and economic embargo cost many lives among the civilian population without considerable casualties among Islamists of Hamas. The main goods crossing into Gaza have been closed and only humanitarian aid has been allowed into the strip since then. However this time Israel has the audacity to attack even the humanitarian goods in the international waters.

Although this outrageous attack provoked last days a UN Security Council’s condemnation, the international community has down little to force Israel to respect the UN resolutions demanding Israel to evacuate Arabs’ occupied lands and respect the right of neighbouring peoples in the region. Otherwise, people will further lose their trust in the “civilised” world what implicitly fuels arguments of Hamas for its acts of terrorism in the region. An immediate breach of Israeli embargo and halt of any military attack on Gaza must be the first and crucial step to approach this region toward a peace and stability based on the UN resolutions.

To be followed

Watch here: watch?v=RN8B1xvCxI0

There must be another
Must be another way

עינייך, אחות / Einaich, achot
כל מה שלבי מבקש אומרות / Kol ma shelibi mevakesh omrot
עברנו עד כה / Avarnu ad ko
דרך ארוכה, דרך כה קשה יד ביד / Derech aruka, derech ko kasha yad beyad
והדמעות זולגות, זורמות לשווא / Vehadma’ot zolgot, zormot lashav
כאב ללא שם / Ke’ev lelo shem
אנחנו מחכות / Anachnu mechakot
רק ליום שיבוא אחרי / Rak layom sheyavo achrei

There must be another way
There must be another way

عينيك بتقول / Aynaki bit’ul
راح ييجي يوم وكل الخوف يزول / Rakh yiji yom wu’kul ilkhof yizul
بعينيك إصرار / B’aynaki israr
أنه عنا خيار / Inhu ana khayar
نكمل هالمسار / N’kamel halmasar
مهما طال / Mahma tal
لانه ما في عنوان وحيد للأحزان / Li’anhu ma fi anwan wakhid l’alakhzan
بنادي للمدى / B’nadi lalmada
للسما العنيدة / l’sama al’anida

There must be another way
There must be another way
There must be another
Must be another way

דרך ארוכה נעבור / Derech aruka na’avor
דרך כה קשה / Derech ko kasha
יחד אל האור / Yachad el ha’or

عينيك بتقول / Aynaki bit’ul
كل الخوف يزول / Kul ilkhof yizul

And when I cry, I cry for both of us
My pain has no name
And when I cry, I cry
To the merciless sky and say
There must be another way

והדמעות זולגות, זורמות לשווא / Vehadma’ot zolgot, zormot lashav
כאב ללא שם / Ke’ev lelo shem
אנחנו מחכות / Anachnu mechakot
רק ליום שיבוא אחרי / Rak layom sheyavo achrei

There must be another way
There must be another way
There must be another
Must be another way

English Translation

There Must Be Another Way
There must be another

Must be another way
Your eyes, sister
Say all that my heart desires
So far, we’ve gone
A long way, a very difficult way, hand in hand

And the tears fall, pour in vain
A pain with no name
We wait
Only for the next day to come

There must be another way
There must be another way

Your eyes say
A day will come and all fear will disappear
In your eyes a determination
That there is a possibility
To carry on the way
As long as it may take

For there is no single address for sorrow
I call out to the plains
To the stubborn heavens

There must be another way
There must be another way
There must be another
Must be another way

We will go a long way
A very difficult way
Together to the light

Your eyes say
All fear will disappear
And when I cry, I cry for both of us
My pain has no name
And when I cry, I cry
To the merciless sky and say
There must be another way

And the tears fall, pour in vain
A pain with no name
We wait
Only for the day to come

There must be another way
There must be another way
There must be another
Must be another way

It took the Arab world more than 20 days to suddenly wake up and hold a meeting about the situation in Gaza. Back when the Gaza crisis started, a GCC meeting was held with no regard to the situation’s seriousness. They finished their commercial merge ups, shared the wealth, and then headed back to their getaways.

20 days later, they realized that the situation is too serious to ignore any much longer, and yet they conflict at when and where should the summit be held.

Is it really that hard to decide an URGENT meeting?

Some say that they’re hand tied in not doing anything about it. Then, it would be natural to pursue achieving anything in a Financial summit, favoring its attendance to discuss Gaza, claiming that it has been thought about and planned for for a year now.

Is it really Priorities or Politics?

Come to think of it.. Was Gaza really a SUDDEN turn of events?
How many Arab Summits were held discussing the Palestinian Issue?
How many conclusions and decision were made?

.. How many actually saw this coming and “zipped” it?

Looking at the recent Arab Summit, it’s now visibly seen on Television what drives us weaker and weaker. We can’t even agree on our stand towards what Hamas’s actions represent, achieve or pays on the expense of the people they seek to protect.. We can’t even get the to next point without telling everyone, This is MY view, screw YOUR view.

However, what personally ticked me off, is this call for sympathy with Hamas, in the Summit and in society.

On what basis should i sympathize with Hamas? On their lack of any strategic thinking? On their lack of military power? On their “tactical” choice of threatening with Suicide bombers? On their methods of Hiding from the enemy, deeper into heavily populated areas?

Moreover, If you take a look at the social stand point of the people, it’s either you SUPPORT Hamas and pray for their success, or don’t do anything about it.. I saw allot of the latter, but i also faced a fair share from those who supported Hamas.. What about supporting the victims? choosing their side isn’t an option anymore?

1000+ people died until now.. What are Hamas goal’s exactly? Signing a truce, cutting back your losses, especially when you’re weak, is a strategic move. Logic, Rationality and even Islam agrees with that.. This, easily, makes anyone doubt their understanding of Islam, which is supposedly the doctrine they work by. I doubt it, since their actions are in complete conflict with what Islam tells us in such times of war.

Surrendering is a strategic advantage, and can reduce the blood shed until people are intellectually, emotionally, spiritually and physically strong. Strong enough to be able to reply, and wise enough to know how to deal with such a country that is a gathering of blood thirsty warmongers.

We’re mentally, spiritually and intellectually weak. Scattered on every view. If we still conflict in our understanding of Islam, and we fail to stand together as a Muslim community, do you really think we’d do any better in uniting under the Arab flag?

Moreover, Raw power, which is Hamas in this case, is futile. Unguided and unplanned, it can cause more damage than the good.

Speculating on a fact here.. I wonder, would things have taken a different path if Sheikh Ahmed Yaseen was still alive?

I mean, he didn’t stray deep into turning a Resistance group into a political authority. Which doesn’t seem the case with what seems to be the hidden agenda of Hamas’s current leadership.

On the other hand, Israel showed before, and it’s showing again, that rules don’t apply if you’re “their” alley.. Doesn’t matter to which side, because the world has turned into two major groups, An Alley and an Enemy.. As a Result, Israel shows another new bloody display of its allegiance as the Terror State of the free world.

Now comes the confusing part where society parts..

What are WE doing to help? We can’t even protest, which is much more logical than boycotting a locally used, operated and supplied Chillies. Thinking that those Fajitas are bullet money to kill us..

The new ideology that seems to be a trend: donate your money, donate your blood, sing a song, make a video clip, and write a poem, and your obligations end there. Any or All of the above, according to how much spare time you have. As a result, you think you’re relieved and you paid your obligations, and now You can freely celebrate the winning of your national team over a football championship.

This “Microwave” instant solution hype isn’t our key of salvation from the guilt that rides over us every time we watch Television, nor is it a cure to the disease that eats us from within.. an Issue like Gaza needs years of building and preparation and in-depth efforts to help, not just give our Money surplus and then go back to our daily lives, turning a blind eye to the mess we’re in.. Much studies and much approaches and much growth in all fields should be accomplished, if we are to achieve anything civilized towards how we see and want to solve this issue.. Not to blind our selves from other disasters that still happen across the world, and the Muslim world in specific.. We fix ourselves to face those problems, not face those problems while we’re weak against our ill understanding of things, or our wants and needs.

I don’t mean to interrupt those many young men that I saw in the streets, wearing Santa clause hats in Tahlia Street in Jeddah, saying their greetings joking about Christmas.. Those guys seem to be in an identity spiral that needs therapy.. But I mean to wake you up to the fact that Gaza’s blood is dripping from everyone’s hands.

I won’t say that I blame Israel.. I won’t say that I blame Hamas.. I won’t say that i blame the world, the Arab leaders in specific.. They’re all to blame.. We’re also included, with how we react to such an issue, what we do and what we spread around.

And Guess what, the mainstreamed hype of Boycotting Israeli, or Pro-Israel American, products proves that we know nothing about commerce, about the world, and about how this war is actually funded.. It proves no points what so ever, especially that most of these boycotts are initiated under false pretenses, masked by Islam.. Falling under the idea that if you boycott the products listed in a forwarded email, given verbal, non-factual, guarantees that these products are Zionist, would reduce the amount of funding the “war on terror” receives. But that’s a different topic that may take us off course now.

Israel claims to be in “defense”, While Hamas claims to score high casualties on the Israeli side.. Sadly, the number of innocent Palestinian Women and Children nearly flood the screens..

..When’s the wake-up call, again?

Yours,
Lou

After I was greatly intrigued by Baghdad Twist, a documentary film about Iraqi Jews, I requested an interview with its director, Joe Balass:

Balass was born in Baghdad, Iraq, in 1966 and after escaping with his family at the age of four, he eventually settled in Canada. He has produced and directed a number of award-winning films and videos including The Devil in the Holy Water and Nana, George & Me. He expresses a very spontaneous blend of seriousness and humour in his approach to filmmaking. At present, Joe Balass is working on a number of documentary projects as well as a fiction feature.
- (Source: NFB)

Here is my interview with him concerning Baghdad Twist, which I previously posted about here:

Q. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your childhood in Iraq?

I was born in Baghdad in 1966 but escaped with my family when I was 4 years old so I have very few concrete memories of my childhood in Iraq. Despite the fact that I was so young when we left, I still identify as an Iraqi.

Q. What inspired you to create this film?

I wanted to make a film which contrasts with the present-day images we see of Iraq. I don’t want people to think of Iraq only in terms of bombs and destruction. I want people to also think of beauty and of dancing the twist in Baghdad. I want people to think of hope.

Q. What struck you the most about the Jewish community in Iraq?

The diversity of Iraq’s Jewish community has always fascinated me.

Q. Leaders in the Arab world insist that Jews were treated with utmost respect and that no policy of discrimination was enacted upon them. What do you have to say to that?

There were official policies enacted by various governments that were discriminatory. Things happened in cycles which eventually became more and more repressive. I don’t think people themselves are naturally hateful or spiteful, they are manipulated by propaganda and government policies. By the time my parents decided to escape from Iraq, it was because of a real fear for my father’s life.

Q. What message do you hope to convey through your documentary?

I think hateful propaganda can blind people, turn them against teach other. I think it is important to try and bring folks together, to celebrate things that bind us together, to understand that historically many people of different faiths and ideals co-existed in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East. We can learn from that past of co-existence and respect to try and build a happy and hopeful future for everyone.

Q. In your opinion, how much information currently exists about Iraqi Jews, and Arab Jews in general, in the mainstream media? People keep referring to them as the “forgotten minority,” are they still forgotten?

I think the notion of Arab identity should be broadened to include people of different faiths and beliefs as a step towards building tolerance. Jewish identity is also strengthened through diversity. The context of different communities and faiths originating in the Middle East is too often simplified by mainstream media.

Q. Due to this topic being taboo, your film will most likely not be heard of or advertised within the Middle East. What do you think about that? Are you willing to push it to a Middle Eastern audience, especially since they are most relevant?

I believe in bridge-building. I would very much like for Baghdad Twist to be seen all over the Middle East. I would be happy to do what I can to make that happen and hope to meet other like-minded individuals and groups.

We would like to thank Joe Balass for committing to this interview and letting us know about this great film which I encourage you all to watch.

For more information please visit:

DocuWeek showcase in Los Angeles (Aug. 22-28, 2008) where it will be playing for 7 days and it will also be screening at the Toronto International Film Festival (Sept. 4-13, 2008) where it is in competition.

Here is a summary of the film:

Baghdad Twist is a visual memoir of one family’s life in Iraq before escaping to a new home in Canada in the fall of 1970. Featuring a never-before-seen collection of archival images, home movies and family photographs from Baghdad, the film pulls back the curtain on Iraq’s once thriving Jewish community.

You can see a short excerpt and read more about Joe Balass here:

And many so people and places in Iraq left to tell the story of a whole ethnic group which has been neglected for 40 years, even after 2003 and as we enter the new world of democracy we had not mention the rights of the Jews, as well as they never existed ,so it was a surprise for us when during the Iraqi elections in 2005, an Iraqi Jew traveled to Jordan to vote for the new Iraq.

The problem of the Iraqi Jews is that when they left a lote of their real states where taken over by al-Bath party and the government,a lot of it were transferred into the Iraqi government states, so after 2003 theses states became the new government share and as most of it had been sold to the public during the last 30 years, rising any discussion about the Iraqi Jews open the door for their states. And according to Iraqi laws any one had documents to prove it’s belonging to a real state can apply a case on the real states ownership conflicts institute, rumors of such cases in behave of some Jewish families was present in the newspapers but the government denied it.

The public considers that the Jews have no rights in Iraq as they sold every thing and left, but so did the Iranian Kurds and the Iranian Shias and they took over their states when Saddam regime ended, also the Kurds are using hundred of years documents to prove their rights in Kirkuk. So why we denied the right of an Iraqi origin ethnic group? Because they went to Israel, what about those who left Iraq from other ethnicities from the opposition and went to Iran, the country we entered 10 years war with it and most of those Iraqis were soldier in special unite fighting Iraqi army with Iran. Also what about our leaders how enter with USA army? During the ex-regime all those were considered as enemies, so why it is ok for them to ask for their rights?

I am not in favor of any religion to another, but I really believe in my right to live in democracy, pluralism, and I had the same problem with the rights of Christian, Turkmen, Armenians, shabak (people with Sunni and shia parents), sabees, and every one who thing he had suffered injustice and prejudges, I will later write about the suffering of Iraqi Palestinians, and the humanitarian crisis they live in Iraq.

The rights to live, find your rights and receive the justice you deserve is every man’s rights, by holy laws and human laws ,we had no right to ask for certain rights of some ethnic groups because they had majority or influence or can bomb the cars in streets if we neglected them, this is not justice and sure had no relation to co-existence.

You think I’m kidding?

Well, I’ll tell you about a trip I made today to see some settlements and outposts in the Occupied Territories organized by the Peace Now’s Settlement Watch Team and guided by Hagit Ofran, its Director.

For a detailed interview with Hagit Ofran click here

(Below this post you’ll find a number of links to web-sites and documents that can give you more information about the settlements and the Occupied Territories.)

The trip started at 11am in Jerusalem’s Liberty Bell Garden. We were a bus full of people of all ages, not all of us members of Peace Now.

We were bound to meet a second bus that came from Tel Aviv at a parking lot just before Hizme Checkpoint.

There we were also joined by a police car that should accompany us on our trip. One cannot make such a trip into a military zone without clearance from the police and the army. And in our case, we were potential “trouble makers”, so the police was supposed to keep us from “provocations towards settlers”, although Peace Now had made sure that the busses were in no way decorated by fliers and banners – and Hagit had told us to stay calm in all situations. We could see that the policeman wasn’t pleased at all by his duty – he seemed rather annoyed, concerned and unhappy about what he had to do.

In advance I must say that nothing of what happened on the trip really surprised me – I’d seen all of it before on TV and heard many witness accounts about the different things we saw and heard. But I had never experienced it live and by myself… – except for the one thing that I didn’t know until now: that as a non-violent non-settler I have far less rights than a violent resident of an illegal outpost – or any settler at all.

After a few negotiations with the policeman and the policewoman charged to accompany us – mainly to tell them which way exactly we were about to travel, we started out: the police car in front, the 2 busses following.

We were heading for the settlement of Beit El, passing by an (illegal) outpost called Meron which should be evacuated in 3 weeks. Hagit explained to us the long and complicated court case about this outpost, which the State of Israel must evacuate by decision of the High Court of Israel. It should have been evacuated at least a year ago (if not more) but each time the Ministry of Security came back to the court asking for a small delay of just 3 month for some reason, then another 2 month for another reason, 6 month here, and 4 month there… In short: last delay of evacuation is July 31^st 2008.

We could see very clearly that the outpost was sitting there quietly and there was absolutely no sign of anyone preparing move, dismantle installation or the like. We all wondered how they would manage to move it all in the next 3 weeks.

Migron outpost – areal view

On the way, when nothing particular was to be explained, Hagit told us about the basic status of the Occupied Territory and its inhabitants.

The whole of the West Bank is Military Zone and under Military Law. The settlers though are treated according to laws valuable for the State of Israel – which is not the case for Palestinians. The same act committed by a settler or a Palestinian is treated and judged VERY differently – for instance throwing of stones – to which I’ll come back later.

We arrived at Beit El.

We didn’t intend to enter the settlement, which obviously would have led to violence, just stop in front of the usual yellow iron gate and hear Hagit telling us about the history of this settlement and its outposts.

Beit El – old picture

Arriving at the settlement we saw that we were expected and awaited by a “welcome committee” of youngsters (adolescent girls and boys) from the settlement. The “crème de la crème” of Jewish youth, as we immediately saw and heard when we left our busses. Before we got out of our busses, Hagit had to choose a safe and neutral place to speak to us, in accordance with the policeman who at that time was already seriously concerned and unhappy.

As soon as we came out of the bus, the wonderfully religious “welcome committee” greeted us immediately with insults, telling us that we should be sent back to Germany, that we were traitors, that we had forgotten our bulldozer (meaning clearly that they considered us as creatures of the same kind as terrorists), that they were the core of the Jewish People, the only ones who secured the existence of the State of Israel, and many other things that I don’t remember now. They also shouted and whistled as loud as they could as to make it difficult for us to hear what Hagit was saying over a loudspeaker. We didn’t approach them – but they approached us, menacingly.

At that time our unhappy policeman wasn’t alone any more. Out of nowhere 3 different kinds of police forces had appeared and where trying to stop the God-fearing youngsters to approach and beat us.

I only recognized one kind of uniform – the grey uniform of a special “Arab unit”. There were others in an entirely blue uniform, which indicates (for me) that they were normal policemen, but probably more trained for “action”. And the third type of policemen – at the beginning only ONE, later more, wasn’t in uniform and had a normal looking car, and took pictures of us. My guess is that he was from the Shabak (Internal Israeli Security Service). Don’t tell me that I’m probably “imagining” things. They’re known for such things and its normal (not only here in this country, by the way) to photograph and register demonstrators – although we weren’t “demonstrators” in any way…

After Hagit had finished her speech and after new discussions with our policeman, we went back into the busses, still under shouting and insults. We traveled off – now in a much bigger convoy – to see an “illegal outpost”.

The question of what is legal or rather what is less illegal than something else is very tricky concerning the Occupied Territories. Please don’t “get me” on that! I’m using here general Israeli “speech” – were we differentiate so to say into State authorized settlements, settlements like Ofra that are big and important now, but grew without any formal authorization. The State acknowledged them implicitly, but not formally. The State built roads, water supplies and all other needed infrastructure, but didn’t formally authorize the settlement. It couldn’t really do that, in fact, as Ofra for example is entirely built on privately owned Palestinians land. And “illegal” outposts are places where there isn’t really a settlement, where there are only a few houses (minimum one!) and which are attempts to create completely new settlements, especially after the government has agreed several times not to do that any more (but still does, in fact).

Ofra -old picture

Ofra – colored areal view: red = private Palestinian land 93.2 %; green = Jewish land 2.9.%; State land = 4 %
So now we were on the way to an illegal outpost where 12 or 13 families live. Now not only guided by our police car, but followed by another police car with more policemen, the Shabak car and 4 or 5 cars of settlers from Beit El who seemingly hadn’t insulted us enough.

We wanted to drive through the outpost to see how it looks like. For this illegal settlement of 12 or 13 families the State has built 2 roads – one to access it from one side and one exit it on the other side. A great privilege compared to the Palestinian village we visited just afterwards, where the main access road (a dirt road, by the way) that would link them from a distance of one kilometer to the main road is totally blocked and instead, they have to drive 24 km each way to reach the same spot.

But when we arrived at the access road to the outpost, two police cars blocked the road – obliging us to pass our way and not to approach the tiny settlement.

At this point I began to wonder seriously who is making “law” there. Who is allowed to do what?

Not only we were driving on a road reserved for Jews only and forbidden for Palestinians, but even as Jews and Israeli citizens we were not allowed to continue on a Jewish road — most probably because the police was afraid the settlers would throw stones on us (what they did later, anyway).

That means for me that these people are allowed to be violent, and in order to protect us, we mustn’t approach them… Frankly, in other circumstances I would have expected that people who throw stones at others would be arrested – especially if already so many policemen were around…

But no: WE were the ones who couldn’t go the way we wanted; WE seemed to be the troublemakers…

Unable to continue our program (which would have consisted in driving through a State tolerated settlement), we continued straight away to a meeting with two representatives of the nearby Arab village of Kariut (close to the huge and very well developed settlements of Eli and Shiloh).

We needed to stop our busses on road no 60 (famous for its variations of status – sometimes reserved for Jews only, right now – as I could see – open to Palestinian cars as well, but as Hagit explained, only Palestinian cars with special permit to drive on that road..). We had to negotiate with the police again to be allowed to cross the road and walk five minutes on the sun-exposed dirt road to the spot where the road was blocked by big mountains of earth and stones – the meeting spot with the two Palestinians from the village of Kariut.

The settlers also got out of their cars and intended to follow us. By now we were joined by soldiers as well! Everyone (except of us) seemed to be very unhappy that we insisted to meet the two Palestinians. We wanted to hear what they could tell us about their living conditions in midst of the settlements. We walked ahead, while the police allowed us to cross the road, and behind us, the settlers were stopped from following us by a rather heavy line of policemen and soldiers. One of the settlers had his little girl (a toddler) with him, without sun protection and without water supplies for her. To insult us seemed to be more important for him than to care for his little daughter – all in all they (and we) were out in the high noon sun, unprotected (except for what we had brought ourselves) for at least half an hour.

We finally met the two men from the village. To see them approach I had to climb onto the mountains of earth. They approached by car, and then got out of the car, climbed over the mountain to speak to us. While we were speaking with them we saw a Palestinian family come home from some shopping, climb over the mountain and walk off the one kilometer that was left to reach the village. On our questions, the men explained to us that the village of 2700 inhabitants had NO RUNNING WATER at all, and the only water source available to them was a single water pipe we could see reach out just behind the mountain blocking the road. One kilometer away from the village. They had to come to this point with tanks to get water to drink, cook and clean!! – There had been a natural source a little closer to the village before, but the settler constructions destroyed it. The Israeli Water Authority refuses to invest there and build normal water supplies for them; while the much bigger settlements of Eli and Shiloh which were close by had running water in every house (even the 12-13 families in the illegal outpost have regular water supplies).

They explained furthermore the hardship of driving 24 kilometers more than necessary in order to go to work (most of them work in Ramallah). 70 % of the village’s agricultural land was partly fenced off and used by the surrounding settlements, and they were not allowed to go there any more. Even the little spot of land around us – between the main road the road-block and the two surrounding hills were kept off-limits to the farmers owning the land.

Sometimes, we were told, settlers would come to their village at night, beat people up and vandalize property. We didn’t ask if they complained about this – because we already knew that this wouldn’t make any sense: they were under Military Law, and would have to complain to the Military Authorities…

Many families have already left the village to go to live in Ramallah or Nablus or abroad at all. This is obviously the aim of the treatment they receive from the State of Israel, its Military Forces and the settlers living there.

Time was running short, we were all hot and thirsty – so we departed and entered the busses again – to drive home to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, where we had come from. Preceded by a police car, then the two busses, a military jeep, another police car, 2 Shabak cars and still some settler cars following us.

After about five minutes of driving we suddenly heard an impact on the bus. (At least) one of the settlers had preceded us, awaited our passing by and prepared to throw stones on our two busses. The two busses were touched by three impacts of stones and one of the stones had smashed a window, but thankfully at it’s edge, and the boarding metal prevented it from coming through the window and injuring the passengers of this bus.

View of one of the bus-windows; the stone has been stopped by the metal bar

We all stopped, examined the damage and discussed the incident. At least a dozen of us had clearly seen the terrorist and could identify him.

But now came the most amazing part of our journey…

I still can’t believe it, but this is what happened. Most of us were out of the busses, policemen and soldiers around us – and here they came and joined us again: the settlers who had followed us for about 2 hours already – and among them the terrorist who had thrown the stones!!! Quietly they stopped there cars beside our busses, got out and continued their insults, telling me, among other things that the army should shoot us all!!

The charming young man in the center of the picture suggested that the Army should shoot us all.

We asked the policemen to arrest the man. No reaction… “Yes, that will be done” was the reply I got when I inquired personally why they didn’t proceed to arrest the stone-thrower. “Don’t worry, we’ll do that later” I was told.

I admit that it’s hard for me now to continue my report of that trip.

We had to drive off, seeing that the man was NOT arrested!!

Even harder was to hear what Hagit told us afterwards. That if a Palestinian had thrown the stones he would be treated very differently. And she told us two events that were witnessed by close friends of hers. One was the attempted evacuation of a very tiny outpost inhabited by particularly violent God-fearing young men. When the police arrived at the outpost, they were greeted by stones. Theses stones can kill – anyone who has seen such incidents knows that (and I have experienced it myself). They aren’t very dangerous to soldiers with helmets, but for unarmed civilians and regular policemen in normal uniform, they can no doubt be fatal.

So 7 or 8 of these “God-fearing” men were arrested – for 24 hours before being judged, as it is the law in Israel. Then they were sentenced to stay away from the outpost for 7 days and to sign a declaration to never do that again.

When you know, like me, a Palestinians peace activist who was sentenced to 7 years in jail for throwing stones at helmet protected soldiers at age 17 or 18 – hearing something like this leaves you speechless…

Another story told to us by Hagit – just to keep the balance: A close friend of hers from Bn’ei Avraham has witnessed a settler in Hebron coming towards a Palestinian family the friend was talking to and shoot at them. After hearing the shots, the soldiers protecting the settlers of Hebron appeared. The man said that the son of the Palestinian family had thrown a stone at him and that he shot to defend himself. Hagit’s friend and other members of Bn’ei Abraham present there told that this was wrong, that no stones were thrown by anyone. Nevertheless, the soldiers who came only after the incident testified that the son had thrown stoned and thus he was arrested. Not for 24 hours before being presented to a judge – but for 3 days according to the Military Law applied to Palestinians. After three days – at that point Hagit was at the court to witness what happened – the boys arrest was extended for another eleven days. Besides that, the father was told to complain against the settler, but was arrested at his arrival at the military office. Reason: he might throw stones in the future. He too spent at least 2 weeks in a military jail in Hebron. I don’t know the end of that story; we arrived at Hizme at some point and had to speak of other things as well.

It was enough for me, anyway. I didn’t need to hear more – I had heard and seen enough for one day.

For the site of Peace Now (in English) click here

For the Settlements page of Peace Now click here

Breaking the Law in the West Bank – One Violation Leads to Another: Israeli Settlement Building on Private Palestinian Property – A Report of Peace Now’s Settlement Watch Team (in pdf) – click here

Although a landmark ruling in January decreed that Baha’is can obtain identification papers, the government has yet to implement the ruling, and recently, a lawyer for Egypt’s Islamic Research Council filed a challenge intended to stall the process.

…and in the meantime, thousands of Baha’is are left waiting.