Hacker News Reader

Comment by isr | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately for the general tenor of this thread, you're repeating propaganda which has been widely debunked by Iraqi Jews themselves.

For example: [Avi Shlaims book "Three Worlds"](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62918049-three-worlds)

There has been a longstanding and unsinkable narrative that, frustrated by the refusal of Jewish communities in Arab lands to move to the early Israel, an active campaign of bombings etc was launched by Israel itself, surreptitiously, in order to exarcerbate tensions already caused by 1948.

Of course, the fact that these communities had existed within the Arab world for centuries itself belies the notion that the Arabs wanted to exterminate them "for Allah". As anyone with even a passing knowledge of history can attest to.

View on HN

I was born in Iraq where the Jewish community there was ethnically cleansed.

Way before the foundation of Israel, my father and uncles were restricted in numerous ways because of their Jewish ancestry. For example there were quotas on the number of Jews allowed in universities.

Jews were frequently imprisoned there (including my father and his brothers) for the sole reason of being Jewish.

> Of course, the fact that these communities had existed within the Arab world for centuries itself belies the notion that the Arabs wanted to exterminate them "for Allah". As anyone with even a passing knowledge of history can attest to.

Let’s apply that argument to eg mid 20th century Europe. Let me ask you this directly: are you denying the holocaust?

You are right. I shouldn’t have used that phrase. It was wrong and I agree with you 100% that isn’t the real reason, just a very poor abbreviation of a deeper reason.

It was for the more common reasons. To scapegoat the Jews while the government steals and does horrible things to its citizens.

Jraby, you need to distinguish between sectarian tensions which were deliberately inflamed

(campaign of Mossad bombings targeting Jewish communities elsewhere in the Middle East, to force sectarian fault lines to implode - documented BY an Iraqi Jew whose father left Iraq, served in the IDF, then left for London where the daughter wrote a book detailing this very thing),

vs the long tradition of Muslims and Jews living peacefully side by side. The Caliph Umar, when he took control of Jerusalem from the Byzantine's, actually invited the scattered Jews BACK to Jerusalem. When Jews were being banished from Al-Andalus (Spain) after the Christian reconnaissance (Spanish Inquisition and all that), the Ottoman Sultan actually sent multiple ships to RESCUE them, which is why there was such a large Jewish presence in N Africa.

There is simply NO comparison between the Jewish experience under Muslim rule, and the Jewish history of repression under European rule. None.

And then Zionism came along. If not for that, you would be Iraqi today. That's the sad truth.

I’m not comparing Muslim vs European rule. The point is that when world events happen, Jews aren’t safe.

Life wasn’t equal as a Jew in Iraq, and that was one of the best examples one could find. And it shouldn’t matter that Israel was formed - if Jews were safe there they should always be safe.

You missed my point. Jews in Iraq actually refused to go to Israel in the 50s. Which is why the clandestine bombing campaign, detailed in the books (written by Iraqi Jews, published in London) I mentioned before, was carried out by Mossad. To engineer the conditions to get them to move.

That's why I laid the blame on Zionisms door.

And in Iran, where Mossad did NOT get to strut their stuff, the rather large Jewish community exists to this day.

Anyway, enough said. I've made this point as clearly and carefully as I could - and yet still got bizarre accusations of somehow being a Holocaust denier (not by you, but another yahoo who was dealt with).

My family actually waited till 1971 to leave. By then Sadam was in power.

It doesn’t matter that much. The Muslim world these days is deeply antisemitic.

Putting aside your barrage of disinformation, conspiracy theories and plain lies, it wouldn’t really matter /even if/ jews lived peacefully as equals to muslims in the muslim world before the 20th century (which they absolutely did not).

The fact is, they were expelled from those countries. EVEN IF it was “safe” being an iraqi jew in 1850, it was not in 1950, and it is definitely not today. So what is your point?

> Let’s apply that argument to eg mid 20th century Europe. Let me ask you this directly: are you denying the holocaust?

Oh, go to hell with that fake question. What I said was DIRECTLY about Jewish communities living in the Muslim world, for centuries. Any half-decent professor of history would agree with what I said. It's not even remotely controversial nor contested by any serious historian, Jewish, Christian or Muslim.

You're desperately clutching at straws, trying to imply that anyone here denied the centuries long EUROPEAN history of pogroms and expulsions, from Britain and Spain in the 14th to 15th centuries, to the repeated pogroms throughout Western, Central and Eastern Europe, culminating in the 20th century where much of Europe COLLABORATED with the Germans to butcher 8+ million people far away from any front lines, 6 million of whom were Jews.

Why are you so desperate to put your words in other people's mouth? Are YOU trying to deny the Holocaust? Hmm ...

My apologies, I thought you were simply mistaken rather than trolling.

I asked you a direct question that followed from your argument, where you proposed essentially a global jewish conspiracy, based on strawman arguments.

As an answer, I got an angry rant attacking me personally, citing an unknown authority (“Any half decent professor”) as your source in an attempt to bully and discredit me.

Much Appreciated.

You discredited yourself. I didn't have to.

LOL. I discredit myself? I made no claims to discredit here, whereas you are repeating conspiracy theories and spewing hate all over this thread.

Sibling comment gave a direct example from personal experience countering your claim.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com