An Iraq-born member of the Knesset has branded the Baghdad regime’s recent invitations to Iraqi Jews in Israel to return to their country of origin a piece of “incredible demagoguery.” Mrs. Shoshana Arbeli Almoslino, a Labor MK and chairman of the Knesset’s labor affairs committee, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in a special interview today that the Iraqi authorities were apparently reacting to the recently organized movement of Oriental Jews to press the claims of Jewish refugees from Arab countries.
Mrs. Arbeli-Almoslino, who escaped from Iraq in 1947 after she was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment for Zionist activities, said “I have nothing pleasant to remember from my life in Iraq and I am sure that no other Iraqi Jew has either.” She recalled her childhood in Mosul, in northern Iraq where she was born, where Jews lived in a ghetto and were terrorized by their Arab neighbors and “friends” whenever clashes between Jews and Arabs occurred in Palestine.
She remembered in particular, 1941 when some 2500 Iraqi Jews were massacred in Baghdad by the followers of the pro-Nazi Rashid Ali el-Kal-aini, Jews were always discriminated against in Iraq, Mrs. Arbeli-Almoslino said, adding that she had turned to Zionism because of the humiliations she was subjected to in Mosul.
CAMPAIGN CONDEMNED IN BRITAIN
The Iraqi campaign importuning Jews to return to that country surfaced recently in the British press where the Iraqi Embassy in London placed large advertisements promising the returnees a “safe and warm” welcome. The ads quoted the recent UN General Assembly resolution identifying Zionism as a form of racism. Their publication outraged the Anglo-Jewish community which picketed the offices of The Guardian in protest last week. The Times of London also published the ads but deleted certain offensive passages from the copy.
Mrs. Arbeli-Almoslino became aware of the Iraqi campaign last July when she attended the International Convention on Women’s Rights in Mexico City as an Israeli delegate. Although the agenda item was equal opportunities for women, the Arab, Communist and Third World majority turned the gathering into an anti-Israel forum and Pushed through a resolution in which Zionism was formally condemned, along with capitalism and racism, as a movement to be eliminated.
When Mrs. Arbeli-Almoslino was finally permitted to speak, she gave an account of her personal experiences with racism, discrimination and persecution in Iraq. The Iraqi delegate, who followed her on the speakers’ stand, announced that his government intended to enact legislation urging former Iraqi Jews to return to Iraq. Mrs. Arbeli-Almoslino interjected, “Do you really believe that Jews will return to Iraq to be killed?” but she was shouted down by other delegates.
She told the JTA today that she was convinced that not a single Jew from Iraq would want to return to that country. The Iraqi campaign is viewed in some quarters here as an attempt to sow dissention between Oriental Jews and their fellow Israelis of Western background. Their aim is to aggravate the most serious division in Israeli society–the social and economic gap that exists between Oriental and Western Jews. But most observers here believe it will backfire and have the opposite effect of drawing the two communities closer.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
