One of the most pernicious modern lies about Jews is how well they were treated in the Middle East before the re-establishment of the Jewish nation.<\/p>\n
According to some anti-Israel activists, Jews were treated wonderfully by their Arab brethren before they took an opportunity to assert self-determination and build a nation in their\u00a0indigenous lands<\/a>.<\/p>\n One of the most damning examples of history that clearly exposes the lie for what it is was the Farhud, which we remember this month.<\/p>\n Following a pro-Nazi coup led by nationalist Rashid Ali al-Kailani and Palestinian leader, Hajj Amin al-Husseini,\u00a0anti-Jewish riots broke out in Baghdad on June 1, 1941<\/a>. Before being suppressed by the British military, the pogrom left at least 180 Jews dead, 1,000 injured, and dozens of Jewish homes were destroyed.<\/p>\n According to The World Jewish Congress<\/a>, \u201c…For two days, a mob in Baghdad went from door to door to Jewish homes – killing, raping, looting. The pogrom…was a shocking turning point for the Iraqi Jewish community. Within a decade, most of them fled the country.<\/p>\n There are three main reasons that anti-Israel activists will want us to forget the Farhud and\u00a0many other examples of antisemitism in Arab lands<\/a>:<\/p>\n First, if there was peace before 1948, then Israel is the source of all ill in the Middle East (and so must be destroyed).<\/p>\n Second, some antisemitic groups want to lump Jews\/Israelis in with the fashionable anti-white sentiment (and have already\u00a0exploited the mass demonstrations sparked by the killing of George Floyd<\/a>\u00a0for their agendas), but this is also counter-factual because most of Israelis are from the Middle East and\u00a0even Ashkenazi are genetically separate from Europeans<\/a>.<\/p>\n