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ISRAEL EXCEPTED
Jim Brown points out the following in Iraq’s draft bill of rights:
Any individual with another nationality (except for Israel) may obtain Iraqi nationality after a period of residency inside the borders of Iraq of not less than ten years for an Arab or twenty years for any other nationality, as long as he has good character and behavior, and has no criminal judgment against him ...
Not exactly Jeffersonian, is it?
Update: Israel included!
Before Saddam came to power, nearly one third of Bagdad was Jewish. Many of the Iraqi Jews had been there since the destruction of the second temple, way before Islam was even invented. When the coalition of the willing entered Iraq there were less than half a dozen.
Many of these Jews were massacred, most fled to Israel and carried on with life. They did not hang around in refugee camps for decades asking handouts from the world nor did they blow up people.Good thing that language was dropped. Kurds are not Arab. A sharp (or very generous) lawyer might have been able to convince some judge that all Kurds should be excluded excluded. Since Kurds make up a significant portion of the Iraqi demographics, there would have been more than a few problems.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 07 23 at 10:45 AM • permalinkI just did a google and it was more that a third.
In October 1921, a British publication quoted these population figures for the city as given in the last official yearbook of the Baghdad vilayet: total number of inhabitants, 202,200, of whom: 80,000 were Jews; 12,000 Christians; 8,000 Kurds, 800 Persians; and 101,400 Arabs, Turks and other Muslims.
Hell, sounds like the EU Constitution to me…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 07 23 at 11:00 AM • permalinkBaby steps indeed. The Iraqis are learning about compromise. It’s disappointing to see that, but then, I’ve seen equally stupid things come out our elected officials. They’ll just have to move on, won’t they?
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 07 23 at 04:00 PM • permalinkI’m not asking for miracles, or British/American colonial philosophical conclusions based on centuries of European trial-and-error. These people are trying, and they have veritable mountains of ignorance and prejudice to get over. In this day and age of global information, I expect they will get over it sooner or later, provided we can do away with the extremists in real time.
If you meet anybody outraged by this, how upset were they when the Church of England gave, as one of its arguments for disinvesting in Israel, that the Jews forfeited their claim to the Holy Land when they crucified Christ?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 07 23 at 08:29 PM • permalinkI understand that there are problems with land owned by the Jewish National Fund but only in respect of that body. Considering the discriminatory land title rights we have here hardly seems that unusual however. (native title and who may own such land, assume same US and Canada and NZ)
On the other hand Yasir Arafat said that Palestinians found to have sold land to Jews would face the death penalty, and Palestinian land dealers said to have been involved in such sales were murdered.If I recall correctly, sadly the only expat Iraqis not allowed to vote in the Iraqi elections were Israeli Iraqis.
Wasn’t it something like a million jews expelled from Arab countries without compensation and all their goods stolen. never here of the UN passing resolutions on their behalf.
There would be I assume many in Iraq who are Persian too. And Azerbijians (or are they Turks?) and Turkemans and Armenians. A very odd clause when it was put up.Israel was maily all made up of refugees, either from post Nazi Europe or Arab countries. All absorbed by Israel without being any burden on the world community and 57 years on is a country that contributes greatly to the world in science, medicine and technology and agriculture - despite having hardly any natural resources and despite the world in general and the Arab world in particular trying to destroy it. And is very democratic and open society.
It shows that terrorism and crying and whinging pays.
Hey, on 60 minutes tonight, they had our favourite Shiek Omran on with his belief that the US Government was behind 11 September.
Sheik Omran also noted that there were fifty people killed in London, and one hundred people killed almost every day in Iraq. He rhetorically asks why is one set of murders right and one wrong? The answer of course, is that neither are right. It’s a pity the worthy Sheik failed to note that the perpetrators of both sets of murders are followers of the same perversion of Islam (and in Iraq they are murdering their fellow muslims).Rajan: Israel doesn’t have a constitution
I believe I mentioned that.
To be fair, while (as it’s noted above) Arab Israeli citizens have the same rights Jewish ones do—an equality you’ll find sorely lacking in the Middle East outside of Israel—immigration is another matter. I don’t believe Arab immigration is outright forbidden, but people who can prove they’re diaspora Jews or their descendants are very much fast-tracked over everybody else. That’s Israel’s Right of Return.
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Was watching the movie “1776” just a few nights ago—not exactly straight historical fact ;-) but the point was made that the Southern states would not allow the freedom claimed in the Declaration of Independence to be applied to slaves. This point had to be conceded for the Declaration to be voted in at all, and of course things were a long time changing for black people after that. But they did change and are changing, and for women too, of course. Maybe it will have to be that way for the Iraqis too? Centuries of Jew-hating are not going to go away overnight.