Iraq Anti-zionist, Not Anti-jewish

The anti-Jewish persecutions in Iraq are aimed not against the Jews, but against Zionism, it is reported in the Palestine Post in a letter from Baghdad. The correspondent also asserts that the German consulate in Baghdad is financing the anti-Jewish movement in Iraq. He declares:

While the danger of serious persecution of Jews is hardly more acute as would appear from certain press reports spread abroad, there does exist, in view of what has occurred quite recently in other Arab countries, ground for anxiety. The undoubted latent hostility towards Jews is obviously exploited and strengthened, morally and financially, by the German consulate in Baghdad. The German Consul, who till lately was esteemed a man of liberal thought, and who was friendly with the Jewish merchants in whose hands a large proportion of the import trade lay, now openly and completely follows the instructions of the Hitler government. Since the Baghdad Jews are increasingly disinclined to patronize German firms, he endevours to destroy the influence of the Jewish merchants and leading officials.

Young nationalism in the newly-created State of Iraq sees in Nazism its ideal and in Hitler a hero of national emancipation: hence the Consul’s propaganda falls on fertile soil. The fact that in many stores and on boardings Hitler’s photograph with Arabic texts, are to be seen, is certainly due to German propaganda. A Hitler film was a short while ago to be shown before King Ghazi and high officials and other influential persons at the German consulate, had not the otherwise always available projector failed just on that night.

Iraqian Jewry is too weak and too poorly organized alone to resist the danger which threatens them. The British Government also has certainly no interest in discrimination against an important section of the population and a feeling of insecurity arising in a State which has been established by its cooperation.