As the region is witnessing a new wave of normalization with Israel, Iraqi Jews are seeking an opportunity to visit their homeland, Iraq, just as Israelis are now able to visit the United Arab Emirates.
“Yesterday we celebrated the first flight from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi,” Linda Menuhin Abdul Aziz said in a video posted on her Facebook page. “We are passionately waiting for the time that we can fly from Tel Aviv to Baghdad and we welcome you as well here in Israel.” Linda is an Iraqi Jewish political analyst who left Iraq in 1971 after her father went missing.
Almost 70 years after stripping them from their nationality and forcibly expelling them from their homeland, Iraqi Jews still have not forgotten Iraq and they do not miss an opportunity in raising their demands for the restoration of their Iraqi citizenship.
“On the eve of your meetings with the US administration in Washington, please allow me to put before you this appeal, with the sincere hope that you will take a courageous stand to ensure justice is served for the Iraqi Jewish community, which has suffered decades of ostracism and exclusion,” Edwin Shuker, vice president of the board of deputies of British Jews and former vice president of the European Jewish Congress, wrote in a letter Aug. 19 addressed to Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi.
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