The irresistible rise of the Iraqi Jews

The London Review of Books prints a second letter criticising Adam Shatz's review of two books on Iraqi Jews:

Iraq’s Jews

Adam Shatz abruptly ends his article on the Jews of Iraq with their humiliating arrival in Israel as refugees: they were sprayed with DDT and curtly sent to transit camps (6 November). He might have completed his story by recounting what happened next: the rather rapid rise of Iraqi Jews, as artists, government ministers, generals, academics, assorted professionals and businesspeople of all kinds in an increasingly prosperous and advanced society. But that would not have served the purpose of denigrating Israel. By the way, at the time DDT was the only safeguard against the Mesopotamian fruit flies that could have devastated the orange crops that were the country’s only export.
Edward Luttwak
Chevy Chase, Maryland