Wednesday, September 13, 2017

A Repatriation Only the Most Ardent Repatriationist Could Love

One can only hope one of the few Trump political appointees at the State Department takes a close look at the Obama Administration deal to repatriate the Iraqi Jewish Archive.  Such a repatriation would seem to be against everything America stands for.  Some of the materials were originally confiscated from Iraqi Jews who were forced to leave their country under Saddam Hussein.  Others appear to be taken from schools and synagogues after they left. All the material was stored in the basement of Iraqi secret police headquarters, and became waterlogged after the building was bombed during the liberation of Iraq.  The US Government spent considerable time and money restoring and digitizing them.  This is yet another situation where UNESCO's repatriationist dogma has been allowed to take precedence over not only the facts, but what is right.  The archive should not be returned to sectarian Iraq.  Or, at a minimum, the entire contents of the archive should be publicized so that individual Iraqi Jews can make claims on what is rightly the property of their own families.
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1 comment:

  1. John HSeptember 15, 2017 at 1:37 AM

    Hi Peter:

    "This is yet another situation where UNESCO's repatriationist dogma has been allowed to take precedence over not only the facts, but what is right," you write.

    When one examines the history of some of those drawing huge salaries from UNESCO's coffers it becomes evident that this international gravy train is a magnet for the corrupt; former Communists; and other assorted former anti-democrats. Dogma is in their DNA. I wonder if we are witnessing anti-Semitism from the comrades?

    In the UK, UNESCO tried to ride roughshod over and to derail the plans for Stonehenge Tunnel. To their credit, English Heritage and the National Trust among others, gave UNESCO and its rent-a-mob bag-carriers the Agincourt Salute. Common sense and Democracy still rule in the UK - to a certain extent - I'm very happy to say.

    Best

    John Howland
    UK Collector & Detectorist

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