1949 the First Israelis by Tom Segev

Author:Tom Segev
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

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I. At one of the sessions of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, Ben-Gurion referred to the Jews of Morocco as “savages,” but hastily added that they were no different from the others. “They tell me that there are thieves among them. I am a Polish Jew, and I doubt if there is any Jewish community which has more thieves in it than the Polish ones.”17 Following a meeting with the Chief of Police, Yehezkel Sahar, Ben-Gurion noted some of the reasons for the increase in crime: the transition from war to peace, the problems of veteran soldiers and immigration, “especially the Moroccans.”18 A few years later Ben-Gurion wrote to Justice Moshe Etzioni: “An Ashkenazi gangster, thief, pimp or murderer will not gain the sympathy of the Ashkenazi community (if there is such a thing), nor will he expect it. But in such a primitive community as the Moroccans’—such a thing is possible. . . .”19

II. A few months later the Chairman of the Association of Immigrants from North Africa reported: “In Morocco and Algeria Herut is taking over. Slowly but surely it is making headway and running very deep.”26 An agent in Algiers reported: “It should be remembered that Jabotinsky once visited Algeria and many still remember his visit.”27 David Horowitz, then General Director of the Ministry of Finance and subsequently President of the Bank of Israel, said during a political consultation with Ben-Gurion: “The population in the camps is becoming a sort of second nation, a rebellious nation which views us as plutocrats. This is incendiary material, eminently useful to Herut and the Communists. It’s dynamite. . . . The immigrants are in some ways taking the place of the Arabs. There is also a special attitude emerging on our part toward them; we are beginning to harbor an attitude of superiority.”28

III. On January 14, 1951, at about seven p.m., a bomb—or perhaps a hand-grenade—was thrown into the courtyard of the Mas’oudah Shemtov synagogue in Baghdad. This was the meeting place for the Jews about to leave for the airport. At the time there were hundreds of Jews in the place. Four people, including a boy of 12, were killed and some 20 wounded. This was not the first attack on Jewish centers in Iraq, but it was the most notorious, in part because of the persistent rumor that it was the work of Israeli agents bent on scaring the Jews and prompting them to go to Israel. The rumor named one particular agent of the Mossad, Mordehai Ben-Porat, who many years later served as a Cabinet Minister in Israel. It is significant that the rumor arose at all, and that it was persistently repeated, even by Iraqi Jews. Obviously, the idea was not unthinkable. In 1981, Ben-Porat sued a reporter, Barah Nadel, who referred to the rumor, and after prolonged negotiations they settled the dispute out of court. Nadel stated that he had been influenced by the malicious reports of the Iraqi government, and apologized for what he had written.

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