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1950–1951 Baghdad bombings

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1950–1951 Baghdad bombings refers to the bombing of Jewish targets in Baghdad, Iraq, between April 1950 and June 1951. In the wake of these incidents, Iraqi authorities arrested 28 Jews and 9 Arabs on charges of espionage and illegal arms possession.

Some historians assign responsibility for the bombings to anti-Jewish Arab extremists while others have controversially accused members of Zionist underground of carrying out the attacks in order to encourage Iraqi Jews to immigrate to Israel. Shalom Salah Shalom and Yosef Ibrahim Basri were sentenced to death by hanging and Yehuda Tajjar to life with hard labor. Seventeen others were given long prison sentences.[1]

Background

See also: History of the Jews in Iraq

Before the exodus of Jews to Israel, there were about 140,000 Iraqi Jews. Most lived in Baghdad, of which Jews made up a sixth of the city's population. High Jewish populations also existed in the towns of Basra and Mosul.[2]

Iraqi Jews constitute one of the world's oldest and most historically significant Jewish communities. By 1936, there was an increased sense of insecurity among the Jews of Iraq. The rise of pan-Arab nationalism coincided with the second King Faisal's admiration of Nazism. In 1941 after the government of pro-Nazi Rashid Ali was defeated, his soldiers and policemen, aided by the Arab mob, started the Farhud ("violent dispossession").[3] A government commission later reported that at least 180 Jews had been killed and 240 wounded, 586 Jewish businesses pillaged, and 99 Jewish homes burned.[4]

In the summer of 1948, the Iraqi government declared Zionism a capital offense and fired Jews in government positions.[5] In his autobiography, Sasson Somekh, a Baghdadi Jew, wrote:

Emigration until 1946 or 1947 was infrequent, despite the growing feeling among Iraqi Jews that their days in the Land of the Two Rivers were numbered. By the time war broke out in Palestine in 1948, many civil servants had been dismissed from their governmental jobs. Commerce had declined considerably, and the memory of the Farhud, which had meanwhile faded, returned.[6]

At this time, he writes, "hundreds of Jews... were sentenced by military courts to long prison sentences for Zionist and Communist activity, both real and imagined. Some of the Baghdadi Jews who supported the Zionist movement began to steal across the border to Iran, from where they were flown to Israel." [7]

Elie Kedourie writes that after the 1948 show trial of Shafiq Ades, a respected Jewish businessman, who was publicly hanged in Basra,[7] Iraq Jews realized they were no longer under the protection of the law and there was little difference between the mob and Iraqi court justice.[8]

By 1949, the Iraqi Zionist underground was smuggling Iraqi Jews out of the country at the rate of 1,000 a month.[9] In March 1950, Iraq passed a law stripping Jews who emigrated of their Iraqi citizenship. The law was motivated by economic considerations (the property of departing Jews reverted to the state treasury) and a sense that Jews were a potentially troublesome minority that the country would be better off without. (p. 91) Israel was initially reluctant to absorb so many immigrants, (Hillel, 1987) but in March 1951 organized Operation Ezra and Nehemiah, an airlift to Israel, and sent in emissaries to encourage Jews to leave.

Bombing incidents

  • On March 19, 1950, a bomb exploded in the American Cultural Center and Library used by Iraqi Jews.[citation needed]
  • In April, 1950, a bomb was thrown into El-Dar El-Bida Coffee shop in Baghdad. Four Jews were injured in the blast.[1]
  • On May 10, 1950, a grenade was thrown at Beit-Lawi Automobile company building, a company with Jewish ownership.[citation needed]
  • On June 3, 1950, a grenade exploded in El-Batawin, then a Jewish area of Baghdad, with no casualties.[citation needed]
  • On June 5, 1950, there was another attack on El Rasjid Street. Nobody was injured.[citation needed]
  • On January 14, 1951, a grenade damaged a high-voltage cable outside Masouda Shem-Tov Synagogue. Three[1], or four[10] Jews were killed, including a 12-year old boy, and ten were wounded.[10]
  • In March, 1951, the US legation's information office was attacked.[1]
  • In May, 1951, a Jewish home was attacked[1]
  • In June 1951, a Jewish shop was attacked[1]

Responsibility for the bombings

Israeli historian Moshe Gat believes that the attacks were the work of Arab extremists and sees little connection between the bombings and exodus.[2][11] Gat wrote that frantic Jewish registration for denaturalisation and departure was driven by knowledge that the denaturalisation law was due to expire in March 1951. He also noted the influence of further pressures including the property-freezing law and continued anti-Jewish disturbances which raised the fear of large-scale pogroms. According to Gat it was highly unlikely the Israelis would have taken such measures to accelerate the Jewish evacuation given that they were already struggling to cope with the existing level of Jewish immigration.

Gat also raised serious doubts about the guilt of the alleged Jewish bomb throwers. An Iraqi army officer known for his anti-Jewish views was originally arrested for the offenses and but never charged, after explosive devices similar to those used in the attack on the Jewish synagogue were found in his home. The 1950–1951 bombings followed a long history of anti-Jewish incidents in Iraq and the prosecution was not able to produce a single eyewitness. Shalom Salah told the court that he had confessed after being severely tortured.[12] Gat believes the perpetrators were members of the anti-Jewish Istiqlal Party.

Historian Esther Meir-Glitzenstein, in her book, Zionism in an Arab Country: Jews in Iraq in the 1940s also holds that the charges against the Jews were "groundless for several reasons." Many thousands of Iraqi Jews had already registered to leave. She believes that the arrests and judgments were part of a ploy the Iraqi government used to demonstrate it was not "helping Israel" by letting Jews leave. According to Meir-Glitzenstein, the "Palestinian Arabs adopted the allegation of Israeli terrorism in order to counter Israeli claims that Jewish survival in Islamic countries was no longer possible due to antisemitism, discrimination, persecution, and even expulsion."[13]

Palestinian historian Abbas Shiblak believes that the attacks were committed by Zionist activists and that the attacks were the pre-eminent reason for the subsequent exodus of Iraqi Jews to Israel[14]. Shiblak also argues that the attacks were an attempt to sour Iraq-American relations, saying "The March 1951 attack on the US Information Centre was probably an attempt to portray the Iraqis as anti-American and to gain more support for the Zionist cause in the United States[2]".

The Iraqi Jewish anti-Zionist author Naeim Giladi claims that the bombings were "perpetrated by Zionist agents in order to cause fear amongst the Jews, and so promote their exodus to Israel"[15] is shared by a number of authors, including Wilbur Crane Eveland (1980)[16], Uri Avnery (1988)[citation needed], Ella Shohat (1986)[citation needed], Marion Wolfsohn (1980)[citation needed], and Rafael Shapiro (1984)[citation needed]. In his article, Giladi notes that this was also the conclusion of Wilbur Crane Eveland, a former senior officer in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who outlined that allegation in his book "Ropes of Sand".

According to Eveland, whose information was presumably based on the Iraqi official investigation which was shared with the US embassy[1], "In an attempt to portray the Iraqis as anti-American and to terrorize the Jews, the Zionists planted bombs in the U.S. Information Service library and in the synagogues. Soon Leaflets began to appear urging Jews to flee to Israel... most of the world believed reports that Arab terrorism had motivated the flight of the Iraqi Jews whom the Zionists had 'rescued' really just in order to increase Israel’s Jewish population." [16]

The British Embassy in Baghdad assessed that the bombings were carried out by Zionist activists trying to highlight the danger to Iraqi Jews, in order influence the State of Israel to accelerate the pace of Jewish emigration. Another possible explanation offered by the embassy was that bombs were meant to change the minds of well-off Jews who wished to stay in Iraq.[10]

Arthur Neslen's recently published book "Occupied Minds" contains an interview with the convicted bomber Yehuda Tajar in which he recalls a conversation with the widow of Beit-Halahmi, a fellow Mossad agent. She implied that Beit-Halahmi, on his own initiative, and without orders from Israel, organized attacks after his colleagues were arrested in order to cast doubt on their guilt.[10] [dead link]

Motives

There has been debate over whether the bombs were in fact planted by the Mossad in order to encourage Iraqi Jews to emigrate to the newly created state of Israel or whether they were the work of Arab anti-Jewish extremists in Iraq. The issue has been the subject of lawsuits and inquiries in Israel[17]. The historian Moshe Gat[11] and a 1960 inquiry by the Mossad have found against Jewish involvement in the bombings. Historian Abbas Shiblak, Iraqi Jew Naeim Giladi and CIA agent Wilbur Crane Eveland[16] have argued for Jewish involvement in the bombings.

Alleged Mossad involvement

In April 1950, an activist of Mossad LeAliyah Bet, Shlomo Hillel, using the alias Richard Armstrong, flew from Amsterdam to Baghdad as a representative of the American charter company Near East Air Transport, to organize an airlift of Iraq Jews to Cyprus. In fact, Near East Air Transport was owned by the Jewish Agency and the Jews were taken to Israel, not Cyprus.[5] Earlier, Hillel had trained Zionist militants in Baghdad under the alias Fuad Salah. According to Adam Shatz, the Mossad had been promoting Jewish emigration since 1941 and used stories of Jewish mistreatment to encourage the Jews to leave.[5] Mordechai Ben Porat, founder and chair of the Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center, who was coordinating Jewish emigration at the time, was accused of orchestrating a bombing campaign to speed up the Jewish exodus from Iraq. Porat sued the journalist for libel, ending in an out-of-court compromise and an apology by the journalist.[17] In his 1996 book "To Baghdad and Back," Ben-Porat published the full report of a 1960 investigation committee appointed by David Ben Gurion, which found no proof that Jews were involved in the bombing.[18] Yehuda Tajar, who spent ten years in Iraqi prison for his alleged involvement in the bombings, said they were carried out by the Muslim Brotherhood. According to Tajar, the widow of one of the Jewish activists, Yosef Beit-Halahmi, implied he had organized attacks after his colleagues were arrested for the Masuda Shemtov synagogue bombing, to prove that those on trial were not the perpetrators.[10]

Effects on Iraqi Jewish emigration

Displaced Iraqi Jews arrive in Israel, 1951

In March 1950 the government of Iraq passed the Denaturalisation Act that allowed Jews to emigrate if they renounced their Iraqi citizenship. Iraqi prime minster Tawfiq al-Suwaidi expected that 7,000–10,000 Jews out of the Iraqi Jewish population of 125,000 would leave.[5] A few thousand Jews registered for the offer before the first bombing occurred.[2] The first bombing occurred on the last day of Passover, 8 April 1950. Panic in the Jewish community ensued and many more Jews registered to leave Iraq. The law expired in March 1951 but was extended after the Iraqi government froze the assets of departing Jews, including those who had already left. Between the first and last bombing almost the entire Jewish community bar a few thousand had registered to leave the country.[2][5] The emigration of Jews was also due to the deteriorating status of Jews in Iraq since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war as they were suspected of being disloyal to Iraq. They were treated with threats, suspicion and physical assaults and were portrayed as a fifth column in the media.[5] By 1953, nearly all Jews had left the country.[5] In his memoir of Jewish life in Baghdad, Sasson Somekh writes: "The pace of registration for the citizenship waiver was slow in the beginning, but it increased as tensions rose between Jews and their neighbors and after acts of terror were perpetrated against Jewish businesses and institutions – especially the Mas'uda Shem-Tov Synagogue...This was the place to which emigrating citizens were required to report with their luggage before leaving for Israel."[19]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Morris & Black, 1992, p.91
  2. ^ a b c d e Al-Shawaf, Rayyan (2006 (Winter)) [2006], "Review: Iraqi Jews: A History of Mass Exodus", Democratiya, Winter 2006 (7): 187, retrieved 2010-04-05 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ The terror behind Iraq's Jewish exodus Julia Magnet (The Telegraph, April 16, 2003)
  4. ^ Black, Edwin (Winter 2004). "Dispossessed: How Iraq's 2,600-year-old Jewish community was decimated in one decade". Volume 23. Reform Judaism Online. Retrieved 10 April 2010.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Shatz, Adam (2008-11-06), "Leaving Paradise", London Review of Books, 30 (21), retrieved 2010-04-05
  6. ^ Baghdad, Yesterday:The Making of an Arab Jew, Sasson Somekh, Ibis, 2003, p. 150
  7. ^ a b Baghdad, Yesterday:The Making of an Arab Jew, Sasson Somekh, Ibis, 2003, p. 152
  8. ^ The terror behind Iraq's Jewish exodus Julia Magnet (The Telegraph, April 16, 2003)
  9. ^ R. S. Simon, S. Reguer, M. Laskier, The Jews of the Middle East and North Africa in Modern Times (Columbia University Press, 2003), p. 365
  10. ^ a b c d e Segev, Tom (2006-06-04). "Now it can be told". Haaretz. Retrieved 2010-04-05.
  11. ^ a b Gat, Moshe (1997-05-01). The Jewish Exodus from Iraq, 1948–1951. Routledge. p. 224. ISBN 978-0714646893. Retrieved 2010-04-05.
  12. ^ The Quagmire, Emil Murad, p. 182-183
  13. ^ Esther Meir-Glitzstein (2004). Zionism in an Arab Country: Jews in Iraq in the 1940's. London: Routledge. pp. 208–209. ISBN 0--203-34406-5.
  14. ^ Shiblak, Abbas (1986-07). The Lure of Zion: The Case of the Iraqi Jews. Al Saqi. p. 196. ISBN 978-0863560330. Retrieved 2010-04-05. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  15. ^ Giladi, Naeim (April–May 1998), The Jews of Iraq (PDF), Americans for Middle East Understanding, retrieved 2010-04-05
  16. ^ a b c Eveland, Wilbur Crane (1980). Ropes of Sand, America's Failure in the Middle East. W W Norton & Co Inc. p. 48. In an attempt to portray the Iraqis as anti-American and to terrorize the Jews, the Zionists planted bombs in the U.S. Information Service library and in the synagogues. Soon leaflets began to appear urging Jews to flee to Israel. 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. {{cite book}}: More than one of |pages= and |page= specified (help)
  17. ^ a b Fischbach, Michael R. (Fall 2008). "Claiming Jewish Communal Property in Iraq". Middle East Report. Retrieved 2010-04-05.
  18. ^ To Baghdad and Back
  19. ^ Baghdad, Yesterday:The Making of an Arab Jew, Sasson Somekh, Ibis, 2003, p. 153

Bibliography

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