TV report says secret taboo-busting trips arranged with goal of building basis for future ties; delegates tour Yad Vashem, meet academics, discuss Iraqi Jewish heritage
In an unprecedented series of visits, three delegations of local leaders from Iraq have reportedly made trips to Israel in recent months, and held meetings with Israeli officials.
The delegations, totaling 15 Iraqis, held meetings with Israeli academics, visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, and, most significantly, met with Israeli government officials, Hadashot TV news reported on Sunday night.
Iraq is at war with Israel and is a firm supporter of the Arab League boycott of Israel. Its passports are not valid for travel to Israel.
The groups made the trips, which were firmly designated as unofficial visits, under conditions of great secrecy, the TV report noted, in part in order to avoid antagonizing Iraq’s Iranian neighbors.
The local Iraqi leaders were not from Iraqi Kurdistan, the TV report stressed, but rather from the “Iraq… of Baghdad.” The three delegations comprised both Sunni and Shi’ite members.
The trips were mainly of a “social-cultural nature,” the TV report said, and also featured meetings relating to the Iraqi Jewish heritage. The goal, the report added, was “to build the infrastructure for future ties” between Iraq and Israel, with these delegates going back to Iraq as “kinds of future ambassadors” for Israel there.
The report did not identify any members of the Iraqi delegations, nor did it specify with which Israeli officials they had held talks.
Iraq has been in a formal state of war with Israel throughout the modern history of the state, and its forces participated in the 1967 and 1973 wars against Israel. In 1981, the Israeli air force destroyed the nuclear reactor Iraq’s president Saddam Hussein had been building at Osirak. A decade later, in the first Gulf War, Saddam fired over 40 Scud missiles into Israel.
Nonetheless, the TV report asserted, amid overall regional hostility to the Jewish state, the Iraqi populace is “relatively supportive” of Israel, and this was a factor that helped enable the recent visits.
Last May, Israel’s Foreign Ministry launched a Facebook page uniquely dedicated to fostering ties with Iraq. Diplomats in Jerusalem said the Arabic-language page would serve as “some sort of digital embassy” to the war-torn country.
Israel had in recent months stepped up efforts to reach out to the country, arguing that Iraqis were interested in establishing ties with the Jewish state.
A month later, Iraq’s representative at the 2017 Miss Universe pageant — whose Instagram photo last year with her Israeli counterpart forced her family to flee the Middle Eastern country — visited Israel and reunited with Miss Israel.
Iraqi-born Sarah Idan lives in the United States, but her family was forced to relocate from the Arab country after the photo of her with Israel’s Adar Gandelsman went viral last year.
Iraq’s Jewish community is the oldest outside Israel, dating back to the prophet Abraham, who lived in Ur in southern Iraq. In 1950-52, some 120-130,000 Jews were airlifted to Israel, leaving a community of some 10,000. Today, it is believed that number has dwindled to no more than a handful.
See Martin Sherman’s interview with Arutz Sheva about the Iraqi visits, . Dr. Sherman is skeptical that peace is at hand with Iraq or any other Arab country. He points out that politics in all the Arab countries is extremely unstable, meaning that even if a particular Arab country sincerely desires peace with Israel, the next government might not keep it. He also points out that even if an Arab government that sincerely wants to make peace with Israel, it will have trouble bringing its own people along with it because they have been brainwashed for so long by anti-Israel propaganda. I am mildly more optimistic than Dr. Sherman, but I think has cautions deserve serious consideration.
“Iraqi-born Sarah Idan lives in the United States, but her family was forced to relocate from the Arab country after the photo of her with Israel’s Adar Gandelsman went viral last year.”
This is the sort of thing that is making peace impossible in the Middle East. Even if 97% of Iraqis want to live with one another and with Israel, this will not be possible unless those 97 determine to crush the 3% of troublemakers.
A comparison that comes to mind is Cambodia, where a small minority terrorized its own country for years, causing a genocide of millions of people. The people of Cambodia had to finally say
“Enough!”
and defeat the Khmer Rouge minority. The process took several years, but they finally succeeded.
It is my opinion, that the real danger to peace is not the Jihadis. It is the cowardly majority that allows the Jihadis to push them about like gangsters.
NOTE: I am not saying this against that brave woman, Sarah Idan, nor her family. I am saying it against their former Muslim neighbors in Iraq
A similar article appeared in today’s Arutz Sheva: