Barbara Dingle

Barbara Dingle

The Jerusalem Channel’s Barbara Dingle attended the official London commemoration of the 75th Anniversary of the “Farhud,” known as the 1941 “Iraqi Jewish Kristallnacht” which brought to an end the 2,500-year-old Diaspora of Jews in Iraq– dating back to the Babylonian Exile.

A special ceremony took place in London’s Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue and was attended by His Excellency Mark Regev, Israel’s Ambassador to the Court of St James’s, as well as best-selling author of the Farhud, Edwin Black, and many from the Iraqi Jewish community.

We hear a lot about Arab refugees, but do you know the story of Jewish refugees forced from Arab lands?

It’s important for viewers of The Jerusalem Channel to understand what was the “Farhud” (Arabic for “Violent Dispossession”). On June 1-2, 1941, on the Jewish feast of Shavuot (Pentecost) in Baghdad, Iraq, innocent Jews were murdered, thousands were brutalized and Jewish property was plundered.

Image courtesy of Facebook page of Father Gabriel Naddaf

Image courtesy of Facebook page of Father Gabriel Naddaf

The Farhud was instigated by Palestinian Arab leaders including the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini. The Farhud was one of many persecutions that resulted in the ultimate forced exodus of 850,000 to 900,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries.

In stark contrast to the Farhud is the Arab fabrication of the “Nakba,” (Arabic for “great disaster”), which Arabs in the region and their followers to this day annually commemorate on the same day as the anniversary of the proclamation of the State of Israel.

But lies are never a proper narrative! By contrast, the responsibility of the Arab refugee problem rested with the Arabs. It is historical fact that the Arab exodus from Mandatory Palestine started only weeks after the release of the UN partition plan in 1947. The first Arabs to leave their homes and land did so after erroneous encouragement from their own leaders who anticipated the upcoming war in 1948. The Arab leadership’s plea for Arabs to leave the area was met by repeated attempts by Jewish leadership to encourage the Arabs to remain in their own homes in order to build the State of Israel together!