Word: iraqization
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...Iraq's Baathist junta of retired Major General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr has become increasingly nervous and repressive since it came to power last July. It began with a "policy of openness," pledged to stamp out corruption, release political prisoners and welcome exiles home. But the junta had too narrow a power base to tolerate such liberal measures. Last Dec. 3, when the Israelis shelled and bombed Iraqi forces in Jordan, the Al-Bakr regime was quick to blame its growing internal troubles on Israeli spies...
...vowed that "the Lord shall avenge their blood." Israelis speculated on earthly reprisals, from bombing the 17,000 Iraqi troops stationed in Jordan to knocking out Baghdad TV. However, the executions presented Israel with a cruel dilemma: any reprisal would inevitably endanger the 2,500 Jews still living in Iraq...
...cousin who was hanged was a good man. Some of the most important men in Iraq came to his store. He was very, very far from politics." The speaker was Benjamin Aharon, 51, who left Baghdad in the early 1950s as did more than 100,000 fellow Jews, and now lives in Israel. Although his family had lived in Baghdad and Basra for centuries, he had no regrets about leaving. "We were all suspected of being spies for Israel, but we did nothing, nothing . . . They are Nazis." The 2,500 Jews who remain in Iraq today live under a reign...
Syria, Egypt and Libya rank near Iraq in the severity of their treatment of the Jews. For the estimated 5,000 who still remain in Syria, lightning house searches and capricious arrests are commonplace. Jews are confined generally to ghettos, and all must carry identification cards stamped "Jew" in red ink. Jobs and passports are heavily restricted: on the rare occasions that a Jew is permitted to leave the country, he must leave a $5,000 deposit refundable upon his return. For many, it is a small enough price to pay for the opportunity to depart...
...general, the weaker a regime is politically, the tougher it seems to be on its Jews. They serve as convenient scapegoats; henceforth, they may also serve as hostages in dealings with Israel. Egypt, Syria and Iraq have refused all appeals to free their captive Jews, perhaps fearing that a sudden release might be interpreted as a capitulation to Israel or, minimally, as an admission of ill-treatment. There is talk of trying to buy the Jews out of captivity, similar to the effort undertaken in 1943 when Nazi Germany's concentration camps held millions of Jews, but no formal...