The Iraqi government has been making a request of the Americans:
The soldiers came looking for weapons of mass destruction. What they found in the flooded basement of Saddam Hussein’s secret police headquarters was a legacy of destruction — the demise of one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world.
There was a treasure trove of Torahs and Haggadas, centuries old. And there were marriage records, university applications, financial documents — the living record of a community, seized by the Mukhabarat from the homes of Jews as they fled Iraq under pressure and amid persecution, with only a handful remaining.
Now comes the historical conundrum: Who owns these materials?
In the chaotic aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion of 2003, the thousands of sodden documents were spirited out of the country with an assist from then-Vice President Richard B. Cheney’s office and a vague promise of their return once they had been restored. With the materials still sitting in a College Park office building, stabilized but with mold on them, the Iraqi government is demanding that they be shipped back, saying they are the property of the Iraqi people.
“They represent part of our history and part of our identity. There was a Jewish community in Iraq for 2,500 years,” said Samir Sumaidaie, the Iraqi ambassador to the United States. “It is time for our property to be repatriated.”
“[O]ur property?”
Former administration official Dov Zakheim, had an appropriate response:
Dov. S. Zakheim, a senior Pentagon official in the George W. Bush administration, is opposed to sending the materials back to Iraq. “I have no sympathy for a government which stole it from the rightful owners and then a successor government saying it belongs to them,” he said.
This isn’t the first time the Iraqis have made this demand. There were a few news stories about it back in January, including this one with the title, Iraq plans to reclaim artifacts of Jewish heritage it shunned, in which we read, on one hand:
“Iraqis must know that we are a diverse people, with different traditions, different religions, and we need to accept this diversity . . . To show it to our people that Baghdad was always multiethnic,’’ said Eskander.
and on the other, this:
Abraham of the Old Testament is believed to have come from the city of Ur, in what is modern-day Iraq, and despite periods of persecution, the community endured and thrived over centuries. But problems worsened when Iraq sided with Germany in World War II, and came to a head when Israel was created. By the early 1950s, Iraqi Jews were fleeing the country in droves. The few thousand who remained were harassed, too frightened to hold services, and their assets seized. In 1969, after Hussein’s Ba’ath Party took power, came the hangings.
There are two other points to consider. One is the case of Mithal Alusi:
Iraqi lawmakers, who have become enraged with fellow parliament member Mithal Alusi for his visits to Israel, now have another reason to be angry with the fiery politician. Alusi hired Iraq’s leading constitutional lawyer to fight the legislature’s attempt to punish him for visiting the Jewish state, and today, he won.
For his desire for normalization with Israel, Alusi has been a pariah and has been attacked. Two of his sons were killed.
And then there’s the story of the tomb of Ezekiel:
Early reports that Iraq plans to retain the Jewish nature of the Tomb of the Prophet Ezekiel are apparently false. Sources in Baghdad say that the government plans to turn it into a mosque and erase all Jewish markings.
Iraq announced earlier this year that it would revamp the ancient burial site, which is located in Al-Kifl, a small town south of Baghdad. The U.S.-backed government announcement implied that its Jewish nature would continue to be emphasized.
Since then, however, reports have surfaced that the government is actually planning to build a mosque there, including removing the ancient Hebew inscriptions that adorn the site. Some reports say that all or some of the lines of Hebrew script have already been erased.
The Iraqis have shown how much they value the “diversity” of their past. They’ve exiled their Jews, punished a fellow citizen for seeking normalization with Israel and are erasing the Jewish origins of Ezekiel. The Iraqis must not be allowed to regain possession of the Jewish archives.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
