RIGHT OF RETURN:

"Iraq's Jews: 70 years after their expulsion, they seek to return to Iraq and become citizens again. Are you in favor or against their return, and granting them citizenship?

This was the question posed last Friday by Al-Khuwwa al-Nathifa ("The Clean Brotherhood"), one of the most popular Facebook pages in Iraq, which has more than 1.7 million followers. More than 62,000 people participated in the poll, which received over 5,000 likes and 2,800 comments. The bottom line is, a significant majority favors the return of Jewish Iraqis: around 77 percent voted for, 23 percent were against, and the voting ends on Thursday, which makes the overall results unlikely to change. [...]

Many respondents recalled the place Jews occupy in Iraqi history. "Iraq's Jews helped develop Iraqi history in several fields: political, economic, cultural, religious and social," wrote Samir al-Sirafi. "We hope that they will be granted the rights that were taken away from them, because they are sons of this land, and are partners to its well-being," he added. Another wrote, "the Jews are the original inhabitants." Jews had lived for centuries as a minority in Iraq, until the late 20th century, when hundreds of thousands of Iraqis either fled or were forcibly displaced from the country.

Others explicitly link the return of the Jews to the treatment of other minorities: Christians, Kurds, Yazidis, and others. "We are all humans, the Jews and the Christians are our brothers," wrote Mustafa al-Mihdawi. "There is no difference, and this is their country. We must cooperate, following Prophet Muhammad's moral tradition in collaborating with all the monotheistic religions with pure intentions. Jews and Christians, I love you."

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