'Threatened Jews could not seek justice'

Take it from Iraqi Jew Joe Samuels: there was no coexistence between Muslims and Jews, there was only 'existence' of the Jews in Arab lands. Here in the Times of Israel is Joe's rebuttal to the Presbyterian Church's study guide, Zionism Unsettled:

Here are some examples of how the 'Arab Jews' lived in harmony with their hosts: I survived the Farhud (180 Jews were murdered men, women and children, on June 1 & 2 1941). I was 11 years old. Google Farhud or read Edwin Black’s book “The Farhud”. This cause of the Farhud wasn’t  Zionism. The Farhud was purely an anti-Jewish act.

 At 14, I was chased by two Muslim youths with a knife for stopping them from molesting my neighbor’s teenage daughter in broad daylight. At 18, after graduation from Al A’Adadiah High School, I was refused an exit visa to leave Iraq to study in America, because I was Jewish. My story is not unique. I am one of 150,000 Iraqi Jews who was discriminated against, oppressed, and forced to escape religious persecution because of my  faith.

In May, 1948, after failed attempts to destroy Israel in its fight for independence, the Iraqi government turned against its Jewish citizens whose ancestors had been there continuously for over 2,500 years. Arrests, torture, imprisonment and hanging of Jews sent fear in every Jewish person’s heart. It was the fear for my life that made me attempt to be smuggled out of Iraq in December, 1949. I was smuggled through Iran and found my freedom for the first time in Israel. In 1941 during the Farhud, there was nowhere to run to. Thank God Israel was there to take us. I started my life there, like many Jews from Muslim countries, as a homeless, penniless refugee.

Your comment that “the Jews in Arab lands lived in harmonious integration and coexistence in their host countries and were destabilized because of Zionism in the 19^th century” is totally misleading and wrong. First there was no coexistence between Muslim and Jews. There was existence of the Jews in Arab lands. We had to pay bribes regularly and take abuse without seeking justice. For example when a Jewish girl was raped, when a Muslim customer didn’t pay my father for merchandise he bought, or when a Muslim murdered a Jew, we wouldn’t seek justice for fear of the threat of retaliation.

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Presbyterians have it back-to-front on Zionism (Huffington Post)