Rebuttal to Avi Shlaim's London conference bombshell

Avi Shlaim, an emeritus professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford, has been chairing sessions at a conference in London called 'Jews of Iraq: Engagement with Modernities'. Shlaim, who was born in Iraq but left for Israel as a five-year-old, revealed to the audience he has nearly completed a memoir. Its provisional title is : From Baghdad to Jerusalem: Memoir of an Arab-Jew. The main focus, he said,  was on 'The Baghdad Bombs and the Jewish exodus from Iraq, 1950 - 51.' Waving a piece of paper,  he then presented 'new evidence of Israeli involvement in the bombs'.

Emeritus professor Avi Shlaim


There followed uproar, as Shlaim's claim was fiercely disputed by members of the audience. (There was also some controversy over the expression 'Arab-Jew'.)

David Kheder Basson  disagreed with professor Shlaim, producing graphic data affirming that the bombs had no bearing on the registration of Jews wishing to leave. See video of his presentation here.

A lively panel discussion followed. See video.

The venerable professor is no stranger to controversy. He has moved from  mildly critical of Israel to becoming a staunch anti-Zionist during his career. Now that he has resurrected the old 'Baghdad bombs' chestnut, it is perhaps time to  dig into Point of No Return's archives and revisit the subject.

Mordechai Ben Porat, Mossad's leading operative  in Baghdad, had his name cleared in an Israeli court when he sued an Israeli magazine for libel. The court heard evidence  in support of the theory that non - Jews threw the January 1951 bombs and that Muslim peddlars were tipped off to clear the scene just before grenades were thrown at the Messouda Shemtob synagogue, which was being used as a registration centre for would-be emigrants. This was  the only fatal bombing (four were killed).

The so-called new historian Tom Segev refuted the charge that Zionists were behind the bombs.

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It is a mystery why the Mossad might have thought it necessary to set off bombs when by late 1950 there was a backlog of tens of thousands of Jews stranded in Iraq who had already registered to leave. When the Massouda Shemtob bombing occurred, there were only six weeks still to go before the deadline for emigration expired. Indeed, the Iraqi government toyed with the idea of dumping these Jews on Israel's borders or in the Kuwaiti desert because Israel was not shipping them out fast enough.

More about Avi Shlaim

The Baghdad bombings: Whodunnit?

Video recordings of Jews of Iraq conference