Iraq: "The minority religious communities here have very little faith in the Iraqi forces; many are actually scared of them"

MISSION NOT ACCOMPLISHEED

As in all Muslims dominated countries secularism is something that has to be enforced, it does not come naturally with Islam. In Turkey secularism was enforced by Ataturk and his legacy and his laws. In Iraq it was by Saddam, in many Muslim countries there is limited secularism in the constitution but enforcement depends on the whim of the ruling class. Unfortunately our invasion and takeover of Iraq, ended secularism and various barbaric sharia laws were made part of the constitution. We are leaving Iraq by handing it over Islamic rule. An open invitation for the strongest Islamic thug to prevail, all at the cost of other religious minorities.

"We only have eight Jews left here .."

humph...the Muslim goal is to reduce that number to zero....

Thanks, Obama...murderer.

How hard should it be to spirit eight Jews out of Iraq, to eretz Israel, or to wherever in the as-yet-relatively-free West that they might wish to go? Surely it should not be impossible.

Here is the story of one Iraqi Jewess who made aliyah 50 years after she originally intended; the delay being caused by the Muslim who seized her (despite the fact that she had just married) and kept her incommunicado as his slave-'wife' and brood mare, for 50 years.

http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3554723,00.html

Passage from Iraq

'Hannah Menashe was only 21 when she was abducted from her family in Baghdad ahead of their immigration to Israel. Decades later, Hanna is finally making aliyah to reunite with her family who had lost hope of ever seeing her again '

Itamar Eichner

'Fifty-five years after she was abducted from her family's home in Baghdad by her Muslim neighbor and forced to renounce her Judaism, Hannah Menashe managed to flee Iraq and find her way to one of Israel’s European embassies.

'Her long, exhausting journey is finally coming to an end these days, as she will soon be reunited with he family in Israel, who thought her murdered all these years.

'Hannah’s fascinating story begins in the 1950s, when her Baghdad-native family – parents and seven siblings – decided to immigrate to Israel. Hannah, already married to a Jewish Iraqi, was also planning to make aliyah, when fate struck:

'A Muslim neighbor, who was aware of the family’s plans to immigrate, kidnapped the striking Hannah to keep her by his side.

'Her siblings only have a vague recollection of that horrible day. They went looking for Hannah, they say, but the earth had swallowed her.

'Decades passed, the siblings made aliyah and the family expanded, all the while keeping their bitter secret to themselves.

'Shortly after arriving in Israel, Hannah’s mother died at 37, her heart broken by losing her child.

'Six months ago, out of the blue, the family received a surprising phone call. The woman on the other side of the line was Ravit Topol from the Ministry of Interior, with an extraordinary story she was looking to verify.

'It turns out Hannah had been forced to become a Muslim and had raised her neighbor’s children for 50 years.

'No one in the Baghdad neighborhood knew about her secret or her Jewish roots, **and she was afraid her husband would kill her if she tried to contact her siblings** {my emphasis - dda}

'When her husband {sic: I would not call him her husband; I would call him, her 'slave-master' - dda} died a year ago, the now 76-year-old Hannah escaped Baghdad under the guise of being a war refugee.

'She was able to reach Europe through an Arab country and decided to locate an Israeli embassy.

“I am Jewish, I want to go to Israel,” she said in fluent Arabic and with great excitement.

'The embassy found it hard to believe her story; but when she named her relatives in Israel, the embassy officials realized the truly incredible nature of the story unfolding before their very eyes and quickly contacted the Ministry of Interior’s population administration.

'Only she can answer'

“What happened? Did they find her?” asked Ephraim Menashe, Hannah’s brother, upon receiving the moving phone call. “We were in shock. Some of us hung up the phone, finding it hard to believe it was real,” Ephraim told Yedioth Ahronoth on Wednesday. “I always kept the faith that one day we would find her, my beloved sister.”

'Meanwhile, the Israeli consul of the European city Hannah had arrived at took her into his private residence until she was able to board the plane taking her to Israel.

'Hannah will be arriving in Israel shortly, where she will be acknowledged as the long-lost sister of a Jewish family and be granted new immigrant status.

'Her relatives gathered late Wednesday at her brother Ephraim’s home in Ramat-Gan. “He hasn’t slept a wink from all the excitement,” his wife said. “My heart is loaded, but I don’t want to say too much right now,” said Ephraim. “I must ask her a questions which only she can answer.”

'According to Hannah’s brother, only he knows the true details of her disappearance, since he was her closest sibling. “As soon as we had reached Israel, I decided to return to Iraq to look for her, but it the timing was wrong, and didn't make it there.” END.

'It's hardly an easy task to make up for 55 lost years, her relatives agreed, especially since Hannah’s parents and some of her brothers and sisters have passed away. “It won’t be easy, but we love her and will help her adjust.”

- Daniel Bettini contributed to this report. END

And so Hannah Menashe returned, at long last, like one risen from the dead, from out of the land of the enemy.

Jeremiah 31: 15-17 - "Thus saith the LORD, "A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children, refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not. Thus saith the LORD: Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears; for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the LORD, and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope in thine end, saith the LORD, that thy children shall come again to their own border".

Another story about what life was like, in recent times, for the dhimmi Jews of Iraq (a community whose presence in Mesopotamia pre-dated by millennia the arrival of the Arabs, and Islam, yet who were treated by the Arab Muslims, as enemies and aliens, without rights or dignity).

http://www.jpost.com/Features/InThespotlight/Article.aspx?id=178785

Baghdad revisited
By KSENIA SVETLOVA
06/18/2010 19:35

Shmuel Moreh’s recollections of his childhood.

Excerpt:

'Moreh, who was born in 1932 and now lives in Mevaseret Zion with his wife, Kaarina, was one of three Jewish pupils who studied there among a majority of Muslim staff and pupils.

'“The Jews suffered daily harassment, insults and mockery. A few days after the defeat of the Iraqi army attacks against the British military bases in Habbaniya and Sin al-Dhubban, Jews were attacked in the streets, they were searched for espionage equipment and taken to police stations for questioning if they did not bribe the police. Their houses were marked as Jewish by anti-Jewish organizations,” wrote Moreh.

'In April 1941, Faisal, the son of prime minister Rashid Ali al-Kailani, tried to blind the eyes of the writer of these lines by hitting him with a stick.

'This was a well-known punishment for Jews who dared to resist Muslims.

'Two months later, he was able to narrowly escape being lynched by Muslims and Christians at his school in revenge for the defeat of the Iraqi army."'

...
"“I wanted to achieve three things by writing these memoirs,” he explains.

“First of all,to remind the world of the persecution of Iraqi Jews.

If anyone thinks that life was a paradise for us there, he could not be more mistaken.

We were called names, harassed on a daily basis, and I lived through this hell during all of my childhood."...

“I wanted to perpetuate the memory of the Farhud and the tragedy that we lived through.

"Some people say that the exodus of the Iraqi Jews was sped up due to the acts of violence carried out by Jewish Zionist underground organization, but this is baseless.

"I studied the issue closely.

"Ever since the Farhud – the horrible Iraqi pogrom that took place in 1941 when angry crowds lashed out at the Jewish community, robbing, raping and killing thousands – we were always afraid that something like this might happen again.

"**But even before that, the Iraqi Jews were always subjected to humiliations and threats, and that’s what I meant to emphasize in my memoirs** {my emphasis - dda}"....

"IN 1946 Jewish schools arranged an organized scout camp in northern Iraq.

"My friend Maurice Haddad and I were ordered to raise the Iraqi flag at the entrance of the camp. I saluted the flag and start singing the Iraqi anthem. I listened to Maurice sing and was horrified. He was cursing the flag, wishing it perdition.

"I was furious and tried to slap him on the face for insulting ‘our flag.’

"He started weeping and shouted back, ‘Do you call it our flag? They killed my father when he tried to save my sister and mother from being raped.’ He was sobbing and murmuring all night long, ‘They raped my mother and sister and killed my father, and you tell me that this is our flag?’”...

And a second story, also from Jerusalem Post, about life as a Jew in Muslim-dominated Iraq, in the 1960s.

http://www.jpost.com/Home/Article.aspx?id=153676

'Anne Frank from Baghdad'
By LELA GILBERT
02/25/2010 17:00

Linda Abu-Aziz Menuhin recounts lesser-known 'nakba' of Iraqi Jews.

'"In recent years, many Jews from Iraq have started to talk about what happened to them. But I was so hurt and so locked into myself that I didn't think I could deal with it," says Linda Abu-Aziz Menuhin, who in 1970 fled anti-Jewish violence in Baghdad.

"More recently I've felt that I needed to heal this very bad bruise, so I am in the process of opening up. Now I say that having to leave my home in Iraq was my nakba - my catastrophe."

"Nakba Day," inaugurated by Yasser Arafat in 1998, is meant to counter Israel's Independence Day celebrations, commemorating losses suffered by Arabs who fled their homes during the War of Independence. In fact hardly a day passes when the subject of millions of Palestinian refugees seeking a "right of return" to their lost properties - or compensation for them - isn't discussed in relation to Middle East peace negotiations. Somewhere between 500,000 and 750,000 Arabs fled their homes during the War of Independence in 1948; 60-plus years later, these refugees and their offspring number more than four million, living both in refugee camps and in residential communities.

'The story of their losses and their controversial politicization is a familiar subject for journalists, activists, politicians, and Middle East observers.

'Meanwhile, another refugee story - the history that Linda Menuhin represents - is far from familiar.

'FROM 1948 to 1970, 850,000 to a million Jews fled or were expelled from Arab lands.

'Many of these forgotten refugees were members of ancient Jewish communities that predated Christianity. {And that also long pre-dated the arrival of Islam - dda}.

'More than a few were wealthy, powerful and successful.

'Nearly all of them left their homes with little more than the shirts on their backs, leaving behind houses, bank accounts, investments, personal treasures and their means of livelihood.

'They resettled, mostly in Israel.

'From then until now, they have received no reparations, no inventory of their lost possessions and virtually no consideration in negotiations for Middle East peace.

'According to scholar Maurice M. Roumani,

"In contrast to the high profile maintained by the Palestinian refugees, Jewish refugees in Israel began a costly rehabilitation program and played down their refugee status as much as possible. Their story was little known until 1976, when a new organization named WOJAC [World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries] undertook to make their voice heard so that no Middle East refugee settlement could take place without their claims being part of the equation. These claims are based on both historical and legal rights from centuries of continuous living in the Mediterranean region under Muslim rule."

'Iraq, like North Africa, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, once had a thriving and historic Jewish community.

'Iraq's Jewish population numbered around 135,000 in 1948, with over 77,000 Jews living in Baghdad alone.

'Today fewer than 10 Jews remain in the country.

'Linda Menuhin wasn't yet born when modern anti-Semitic violence first struck Iraq in 1941; it began with a pogrom, the Farhud, instigated by Nazi-collaborator Haj Amin el-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem.

'During the Farhud, 180 Jews were murdered and nearly 250 wounded.

'Persecution ebbed and flowed until 1948, following the establishment of modern Israel, when tens of thousands of Iraqi Jews lost their property and assets and ran for their lives.

'Then came the Six Day War.

'Linda remembers all too well the terrifying months following Israel's military victory against several Arab nations in 1967.

'"After the Six Day War, I really began to feel afraid," she explains. "The trouble began with a protest around the British Institute in Waziriya building. I had to leave my classroom by a back door before the end of a test that would qualify me to study in a British university, GCE. I could hear the radio very loud, shouting how the Arabs had won the war and how many Israeli warplanes they had destroyed. We could feel the heat, on the radio, in the market. We knew it wasn't true because at night we used to listen to Kol Yisrael, which was an Arab language broadcast.

"But then Jews started being arrested. One of our very close friends was living with his old father. They came to pick him up from his house, 'just for questioning,' or so they said. They brought his body back in a sack."

'Within two months, Baghdad's Jews were living in terror, keeping themselves out of sight.

' Their sports and social clubs were closed, their phones cut off and their assets frozen.

'Horrifying stories of abduction and murder circulated.

'Linda's family was evicted from its home.

'IN DESPERATION, Linda sent a letter to an aunt in America, telling of the Jews' terrible conditions in Baghdad.

'She wrote it in French, hoping Iraq's government censors wouldn't intercept it.

'The aunt sent the letter on to Israel. It was published in Ma'ariv, beneath the headline "Anne Frank from Baghdad."

'In 1969, the crisis came to a grisly climax when nine innocent Jews were publicly hanged in Baghdad, accused of spying for Israel.

'Four years later, Linda wrote her youthful impressions of the scene,

"...it was really a blow, a shock to see the Liberation Square on TV crowded with people dancing and singing as if they were celebrating a feast or a wedding.

"Our nine victims were... suspended in the air, on improvised scaffolds... their heads were twisted and drooping and their bodies dangled from the gallows.

"The attitude of the crowd proved to be savage, barbarous and ferocious. They cursed the dead, spat and pelted stones on them.

" It was the most humiliating, distressing, unforgettable sight I had seen in my life. My cheeks were flooded with tears. Our agony was beyond description."

'Eventually, against her parents' wishes, Linda managed to escape from Iraq with her brother.

'The two made their way to Teheran, guided by mercenaries, and finally on to Israel.

'Linda's father, a well-known Baghdad attorney, was taken into custody by Iraqi authorities not long thereafter, never to be seen again.

'She continues to seek out people who knew him, who might tell her the details of his final days.

'The rest of her family is in Israel, scarred by their past but thankful for their new lives.

'They, along with hundreds of thousands of others, comprised the "Forgotten Refugees" who fled Muslim lands in the mid-20th century.

'Each of these owns a family history of terror, desperation and profound loss.

'Each has experienced a personal nakba.

'Will the story of these refugees find its proper place among other issues under discussion in the Middle East peace process? In a 2005 report for the Jewish Center for Public Affairs, Dr. Avi Beker summed up the matter well,

"Historically, there was an exchange of populations in the Middle East and the number of displaced Jews exceeds the number of Palestinian Arab refugees.

"Most of the Jews were expelled as a result of an open policy of anti-Semitic incitement and even ethnic cleansing.

"However, unlike the Arab refugees, the Jews who fled are a forgotten case because of a combination of international cynicism and domestic Israeli suppression of the subject.

"An open debate about the exodus of the Jews is critical for countering the Palestinian demand for the "right of return" and will require a more objective scrutiny of the myths about the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict." END.

The stories of Hannah Menashe, Shmuel Moreh, and Linda Abu-Aziz Menuhin, show us why there are only eight - eight -known Jews still living in Iraq.

There would be, of course, an unknown number of persons who, probably unbeknownst to themselves, are the descendants - children and grandchildren - of kidnapped, raped, forcibly 'converted', terrified and abused Jewish girls who were seized, as Hannah Menashe was seized, by vile Muslim rapist-kidnapper-slavemasters, and used as breeding stock to produce 'Muslims'. There would be others similarly born to kidnapped, raped, forcibly 'converted' and terrorised and enslaved Christian girls.

Perhaps we should pray - whether we are Christian or Jewish - that the Holy One of Israel may whisper in the hearts and speak in the dreams of these lost children and grandchildren of stolen and brutalised and broken Jewish and Christian women, and call them back to himself, out of the deep darkness of Islam. He knows who they are.