From: bdm@cs.anu.edu.au (Brendan McKay)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Re: Who bombed the Iraqi Jews?
Date: 8 Nov 1992 08:20:31 GMT
Organization: Australian National University
Distribution: world
Reply-To: bdm@cs.anu.edu.au
NNTP-Posting-Host: 150.203.23.70

In article 12116@cbnewsl.cb.att.com, sethr@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (seth.r.rosenthal) writes:
>Brendan's article actually supports mine in a strange sort of way.
>For those who weren't following this a couple of years ago
>on t.p.m.  the claims were made (not by Brendan by the way)
>that everyone knows the Zionists bombed the Iraqi synagogue,
>and Jews had admitted to it.  

Thanks, but in fact I did post such things at one stage.  I had 
been taken in by some false reporting of sources that were 
inaccessible to me.  I began to get suspicious when I accidentally
found an English translation of the Black Panther article.

>                              I began posting on this only
>to show what Brendan ulitimately says, that there is not
>conclusive proof, and that the Iraqi authorities had as
>much to gain as Israel, in fact more.  Brendan supports
>all but the "in fact more" in my argument.

In the following I have deleted large sections that I don't
wish to respond to.  Please refer to the original articles.

>In article <1d8bcpINNper@tyl.anu.edu.au>, bdm@cs.anu.edu.au (Brendan McKay) writes:

>> Now for Seth's posting.  "S>" is Seth, "D>" is Danny Keren.

>> D> 3) I seem to remember the synagogue was used as a registering place
>> D>    for Jews who wanted to go to Israel. Wouldn't make a lot of sense
>> D>    for the Mossad to sabotage it, if that was the case.
[...]
>> Now, I wonder if you realise the result of your argument?

>>   Premise 1: Bombing a registration place would slow down
>>              registration rather than speed it up.
>>   Premise 2: Iraq wanted to "to get them out fast, and all at once".
>>   Conclusion: Iraq didn't do the bombing.

>> One could go further and add your premise that Israel's interest was
>> to spread out the emigration, but that would start to get silly.
>> The worst problem with the argument is that Premise 1 is false.
>> In the six weeks before the attack, 2300 Jews registered; in the
>> two weeks after it, 7600 registered. [Shi, p126, quoting British
>> archives].

>Your argument only makes sense if the reason registration was
>slow was because there was not enough throughput in the process
>to handle the crowds.  

I don't understand you.  My point is that the bombing of the
synagogue didn't discourage Jews from registering, rather it
encouraged them.  I guess the fear of remaining in a hostile
country outweighed the fear of being injured while registering.
This merely means you can't use the argument "Wouldn't..." in the
"D>" quote above.

>> S>        b) Iraqi policy was stated in their memoranda to encourage
>> S>        the flow of empoverished Jews to Israel so that the already
>> S>        pressed economy of Israel (1950-1953) from the 1948 war
>> S>        would crack under the pressure of hundreds' of thousands
>> S>        of refugees.  The Iraqi Jews were to be unwitting weapons
>> S>        of the continuing war against Israel.

>> What memoranda?  I have never seen such a statement from Iraqi
>> sources; please give a reference.  Incidentally, when Iraqi premier
>> al-Said was deposed in 1958, one of the charges he was tried for
>> was 'strengthening Israel by allowing the emigration of the Jews'.

This last sentence was an "interesting factino" rather than a
serious point, as the opportunistic actions of al-Said's enemies
don't necessarily tell us anything about the facts.

>Strange since other Arab countries were pushing out their Jews.
>Egypt did after the Suez war, and North African Jews were
>flooding into Israel at the same time.  

A lot changed between 1951 and 1956.  Iraq's 1950 law allowing
Jewish emigration was widely criticised in the Arab world because 
of its perceived benefit to Israel.  However, I am NOT suggesting 
that Iraq deliberately wanted to strengthen Israel.  I suggest they 
were more interested in their own domestic problems, and in some 
cases also interested in getting rich quick.  I suggest you read 
the debate of the Iraqi parliament, as recorded in Stillman.

>> S>                                                           Mossad
>> S>had nothing to gain by the attack the Iraqi Government did.
>> S>It was in Israel's interest to spread the flow of refugees out,
>> S>it was in the Iraqis interests to get them out fast, and all at
>> S>once (remember the tents the Israelis had to put them up in?).

>> This is quite misleading.
>> (a) You are forgetting that there was a deadline for Jews to register
>> to leave.  This deadline was approaching rapidly but most Jews had
>> not registered yet.  Anyone (Zionist or Iraqi) who wanted all the
>> Jews to leave had a good motive to hurry them up.

>You are forgetting that Jews were leaving illegally since 1943.
>Again recall Hillel and Haddad
>and recall that they are only dealing with the Baghdad Jewish community
>fleeing towards Iran.  Parallel efforts were occurring in the Kurdish
>regions where the Kurds were always more sympathetic to Jews
>as were the Turks.  Those Jews who were trying to at least save
>some possessions frequently just went with smugglers to the borders.
>The official statistics on emigration and registration both
>overlook these exits.

Good books try to factor them in.  Anyhow, if illegal exit was the only
way to leave, I very much doubt if the number of emigrants would have
been half as much as it was under the legal system. 

>> This brings me to the last point I wish to make.  Some authors,
>> such as Hillel [Hil] try hard to paint the ZDI/IDI argument as
>> one of Arabs versus Jews, or maybe Arab propagandists against
>> Israel.  Of course Arab propagandists have picked up on the ZDI
>> theme, but they are not the life-blood of it.  Its sustenance comes
>> from within the Sephardic community.  It would be interesting to
>> see an opinion poll on the matter; meanwhile here is some anecdotal
>> evidence.
>> (a) A leading member of Mossad LeAliya Bet, Mordecai Ben Porat,
>>     said, "All those who know me and who know that I was sent
>>     by Israel to Iraq during this period hold me responsible
>>     for bombs thrown at this time.  This is an untrue accusation,
>>     totally without foundation." [Jeu, quoted in [Woo, p198]].

>So, a top Mossad member denies it.  No damage here.

You missed the "point I wish to make".  I wanted to establish that
the ZDI theory is wide-spread, and not just amongst Israel's
enemies.  (a) is a tiny piece of evidence for that.

>> (b) According to an Israeli internal memo, "many of the Iraqi
>>     Jewish immigrants in Israel...expressed either indifference
>>     or pleasure at [Salah and Basri, the two Jews hanged for
>>     the bombing]'s fate.  'This is God's vengeance on the movement
>>     that brought us here', some said.  Many continued to believe
>>     that Salah and Basri had thrown the bombs 'in order to
>>     encourage the immigration from Iraq'." [BM, p92, quoting
>>     Israeli State Archives]

I forgot to mention that this memo is dated 5 Feb 1952.

>I think you misunderstand the mood of the Iraqi and in fact all
>Sephardic Jews in the Arab world.  

I don't disagree with most of what you wrote (deleted) but you must
reread my reason for presenting items (a)-(d).

>		Seth Rosenthal

Brendan.

Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish