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US forces accused of stealing Jewish-Iraqi archive and passing it to Israel

February 17, 2014 at 11:19 pm

An Iraqi parliamentarian has accused the US forces of stealing the country’s Jewish Archive and handing it over to the Israelis. Talal Zobai, the chair of the Parliamentary Tourism and Archaeological Committee, said that the American troops found the archive when they broke into a prison in the headquarters of the intelligence department of the former Iraqi regime.

According to the information office of the Muslim Scholars Committee, the archive consisted of 16 metal and wooden boxes containing leather documents, scripts and writings about the Torah. An Iraqi translator told the US forces where to find the archive when they were based at Baghdad International Airport.


Zobai said that the US forces arranged to transfer the archive under their protection in June 2003. They signed an agreement with the Iraqis to return the archive in 2005, but instead they handed it over to the Israelis, who are overjoyed at having the historical treasure trove.

“They took the best reference archive about the existence of Jews in the Middle East,” said Zobai. “Israeli propaganda about historical persecution of the Jews in the region will be seen as the true narrative now that the only accurate and proper reference about Jewish history is in Israeli hands.”