Three Worlds: Avi Shlaim

 Avi Shlaim's: Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew effectively counters the false narrative of Israel being a welcome home for all Jews!   Shlaim tells of having a real home, with creature comforts, in Baghdad.   His story is one of a long established wealthy culture of Jews in Iraq coming apart, after centuries of inclusivity.   The "enemy" is not the Iraqi People or "Arabs" or anything similar.

Under the Ottoman Empire the Jews had the status of a protected minority with the same rights and obligations as the other minorities.   Although Islam was the official religion of the empire, Islamic law was not imposed on the non-Muslim communities.  The Jews flourished under the pluralist system...

In Europe, by contrast, the Jews were the minority seen above all as the 'other'  and therefore constructed as a problem.  ...

Unlike Europe, the Middle East did not have a 'Jewish Question' - antisemitism was a European malady that later infected the Middle East. ...

Iraq's Jews did not live in ghettos, nor did they experience the violent repression, persecution and genocide that marred European history.

p.13

Shlaim acknowledges the despotic nature of the Ottoman Empire, which both had poll taxes for non-Muslims, and treated Jews as a protected minority.   British colonialism infected Iraq beginning after World War I, seeking oil profits for the British Empire.

The Jewish middle class included not only merchants and financiers but members of the free professions like doctors, lawyers, academics and journalists.  p.29

At the tender age of fourteen, my father embarked on what gradually turned into a highly successful and lucrative career as a businessman. ...

By making top-grade British and European products available for sale in their 'khan', my father and his partner acquired a large circle of customers that included senior public figures and cabinet ministers.  King Faisal I was their most illustrious customer...

p.42

On his own, my father continued to prosper.   In 1939, he built for himself a large, well appointed and strikingly elegant house.   p.43

Avi Shlaim carefully explained how the rise of the Nazi's and the conflict between Hitler's Germany and Great Britain started to bring danger to the Jews of Iraq, as Iraqi leaders were pressured by the opposing sides.

I was born in Baghdad on 31 October 1945.   p.87

We were a well-to-do and comfortable upper-middle class family. p.88

My father was the patriarch and the provider, always treated with great respect by everyone, as is the custom in Arab society. p.89

Most of my parents' friends were Jewish but they also had close non-Jewish friends. p.98

The author notes how the establishment of the State of Israel, with the Jewish minority, taking far more land than was allotted to the Arab population helped bring Anti-Semitism to the Middle East.   

In the course of the war the Jews extended the territory of their state from the 55  percent allocated to them by the UN cartographers to 78 per cent of mandatory Palestine.   ... Three quarters of a million Palestinians, more than half the Arab population, became refugees and the name Palestine was wiped off the map.  ...

Another effect of Iraq's participation in the war for Palestine was to fuel the tension between Muslims and Jews at home.   p.102

In Israel my mother reminisced nostalgically about the wonderful Muslim friends we had in Bagdad and the happy times we spent with them.  Among the qualities she singled out for praise were their many acts of selfless kindness and their unswerving loyalty even when the popular tied turned against the Jews.   One day I asked her whether we had any Zionist friends.  My question took her by surprise.  "No!" she replied emphatically.  'Zionism is an Ashkenazi thing.  It had nothing to do with us!'   p.106

THE YEARS 1950-51 MARKED A CATACLYSM FOR IRAQI JEWS.  In the space of just over a year, nearly the entire community left behind their ancient homeland and made their way to the young and impoverished state of Israel.   My family was among them.  Our comfortable lifestyle collapsed around us...

Apart from private property, the Jewish community collectively owned about 200 buildings including 50 synagogues, 20 schools, hospitals, office blocks, community centres, clubs and cinemas.  But this was just one aspect of the tragedy.

Much more serious and more lasting were the emotional and psychological scars caused by being violently uprooted from our natural environment and catapulted to a new country with a different culture, a different ethos and a foreign language. 

The circumstances surrounding the Jewish exodus from Baghdad are the subject of a heated and ongoing controversy.   ... The standard Zionist narrative portrays the exodus as a voluntary act caused by local enmity, framing it in the context of of primordial Islamic antisemitism and of the harassment in which the Jews were allegedly subjected by all Arab regimes throughout history.   ... following the first Arab-Israeli war the Jews of Iraq an imminent threat of annihilation and the Zionist movement came to the rescue giving them a refuge in the newly born state of Israel to live the rest of their lives in freedom and dignity.  p.111-112

Shlaim then discusses the counter-narrative to this which is the heart of much of this book! 

Attacks on five Jewish targets in Baghdad in 1950-51 provided a dramatic illustration of how far relations between of ow far relations between Muslims and Jews had deteriorated since the 1930's.  The most famous and the only fatal incident occurred on 14 January 1951 when a hand grenade was lobbed into the forecourt of the Mas'uda Shemtob synagogue, killing four Jews and wounding twenty others.  The question of who was behind the bombs is of crucial importance for understanding the real origins of the exodus.  Zionist spokesmen have consistently denied any involvement in the bombings. p. 113

One day, during a visit to Israel in 2017, almost by accident, I came across potentially credible evidence that the Mossad l'Aliyah Bet (the Yishuv's unit that handled illegal immigration to Palestine), and the Zionist underground in Iraq were behind the Baghdad bombings.  p.115

That the five bombs played some part in persuading the Jews of Iraq to emigrate to Israel is beyond dispute.  The big question is who planted the bombs?  ,,, three of the five bombs were the work of the Zionist underground in Baghdad.   ... The person who was responsible for three of the bombs was Yusef Ibrahim Basri, a 28 year-old Baghdadi Jew, a lawyer by profession, a socialist, an ardent Jewish nationalist and a member of Hashura, the military wing of Hatenua, the movement. p.131

 Shlaim clarifies that his research shows that one of the five bombings was done by an Iraqi assailant.  He indicates that it can't be clearly determined who instigated the most major (aforementioned) bombing).

Shlaim concludes this part of his book stating:

'Cruel Zionism', however, continued to characterize Israel's conduct long after the 'Lavon Affair' had died down.  The 'Unfortunate Business' may have started with the bombs that went off in Central Baghdad back in 1950 but it probably had much deeper roots.  In any case, it is one of the most shocking examples of 'Cruel Zionism" that I have encountered in my fifty years of scholarly meandering around the highways and byways of the Arab-Israeli conflict.  p.151

The author discusses at great length the actual experiences of the Jews coming from Iraq, while noting that it was a large part of the emigration of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa.

The actual experience of the overwhelming majority of the Iraqi immigrants fell way short of the Zionist myth.   p.170

(Shocking to me,) At the airport, they were sprayed with DDT pesticides to disinfect  them as if they were animals.   This was a deeply humiliating experience.   ,,, Housing in the ma'abarot consisted of tents or corrugated iron shacks, with primitive washing and cooking facilities.  The living conditions were squalid and unsanitary.   ... Bankers, lawyers, doctors and other professionals  were reduced to begging for such casual work in order to fee their families.  The freedom of the inmates of the transit camps was severely limited.   Some camps were surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by policemen.   p.171

The remainder of the book focuses significantly upon both Avi Shlaim's father and his own experiences.   In both of their cases, Israel - didn't work at all - for them!!!!   Avi Shlaim's father lost the remaining money he had, and didn't work the last 20 years of his life, a man coming to Israel just over 50 years ago.   Avi Shlaim became strongly Anti-Arab - right-wing initially!!!   The father died, with his life largely destroyed.

Avi Shlaim was lucky and also worked diligently - once he (through familial and male privilege) was pushed by his mother to live in England.  Israel didn't work for him!   

If Avi Shlaim and his father were "the exception" - rather than "the rule" - one could simply blame them - for how their lives evolved, related to Israel.   Their stories, however, are a strong lesson as to how Zionism and the Racism deeply imbedded in it - have created "a monster" in Israel.   While most Jewish Israelis may be "good people", Israel's leadership has from its beginning (and also prior to 1947-8)  - perpetrated  a system - which oppresses deeply the Palestinian People and also deeply manipulates and hurts may Israeli Jews - particularly the Misrahi Jews.   

Gaza - Lebanon - Iran - today - a year after October 7, 2023 - relates to this - deeply!  Avi Shlaim continues to speak out - clearly!   His words are easily seen and heard through You-Tube and elsewhere, while being largely ignored by the mainstream media!


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