Chairman of the Committee on Tourism and Antiquities meets with the Director of Recovery Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

[Butifldrm]

Committee of Tourism and Antiquities 

Chairman of the Committee on Tourism and Antiquities meets with the Director of Recovery Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

 March 1, 2018 35 Views

The Chairman of the Committee on Tourism and Antiquities MP Ali Sharif al-Maliki on Thursday 1/3/2018 Director of the Recovery Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The meeting discussed the file of the Iraqi Jewish archive and the most important stages of recovery, after the agreement with the US side in 2003 for maintenance outside the country and then returned.

The head of the Department of Foreign Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reviewed the most important stages of negotiations with the American side and the details of those negotiations. The most important results were that the Iraqi side received support from figures within the US Congress. In addition, the US State Department confirmed the return of the Iraqi Jewish file after the end of the period agreed upon in September 2018 .

For his part, the Chairman of the Committee on fear of not returning the file in full, calling on the Iraqi side in the negotiations to install all the contents of the file in full in the process of receipt and delivery.

 

http://ar.parliament.iq/2018/03/01/رئيس-لجنة-السياحة-والأثار-يلتقي-بمدير/

[Butifldrm]

EXCLUSIVE: The Last Relics Of Iraq’s Jewish Past Are In America. Should They Be Returned?

Talya ZaxJuly 15, 2018U.S. National Archives

 

This is the first of three articles on the Iraqi Jewish Archive. Come back tomorrow for part 2, “In Exile, Iraqi Jews Are Desperate To Reclaim Their Artifacts — But So Is Iraq” and Tuesday for part 3, “The Iraqi Jewish Archive Could Reshape Foreign Policy. But Its Future Is Uncertain.”

 

On a leafy parkway in the Jamaica section of Queens, there is a house that is no longer a house. It’s one of New York’s two Iraqi synagogues: Bene Naharayim. The building doubles, in some ways, as a museum. The sanctuary houses 18 Torahs kept in elaborately decorated wooden cases known as tiks. A staircase is lined with black-and-white photographs of banquets from a past era. Glass-doored cabinets hold menorahs, jewelry, photographs of school classes and ketubahs, or Jewish prenuptial agreements. A basement hallway honors the great Iraqi rabbis of the 19th and 20th centuries. Objects that might not ordinarily be considered worthy of display are lovingly tended. For a community in exile, they are rare relics of a vibrant former life.

Rachel Bakhash

Violet Bakhash.

One Shabbat in April, as forsythia and magnolia bloomed on the lawn of Bene Naharayim, Violet Bakhash, 100, bedecked in a black suit, sequined sweater, elaborate gold rings and jeweled earrings, picked at the remains of a Kiddush lunch consisting of traditional Iraqi Jewish foods, including eggs tinted brown after cooking in a broth made with onion skins.

In 1952 Bakhash was 34, a mother of two, part of the last generation to witness an age of Jewish prosperity in Iraq — and the first to witness that good fortune’s end. She and her husband decided to follow nearly 120,000 of Iraq’s Jews, which then numbered about 135,000, and leave their home. They chose to immigrate to the United States instead of Israel.

“I left my two older sisters, my brother, my father,” Bakhash said. In the early 1970s, when Iraq’s government briefly allowed Jewish emigration after a post-Six Day War upsurge in state violence against Jews, Bakhash’s brother fled. So did her elder sister and her children. In 1991 another sister, the only one who stayed, was killed.

Bakhash adjusted to life in the United States. A small, lively Iraqi Jewish community sprang up on Long Island, carefully preserving traditions that dated back nearly 2,600 years. But Bakhash still misses the richly textured Jewish life that characterized the Baghdad of her youth.

“In downtown Baghdad, in every alley there [are] three synagogues,” she said.

Marisa Scheinfeld

Objects and photographs from Iraq on display at Bene Naharayim.

 

As the Jews left Iraq over the last half of the 20th century, forced to surrender nearly all their personal and communal property in the process, those synagogues, with their rich cultural history, became the property of the state. In 2003, during the first year of the Iraq War, a group of American soldiers from the army’s Mobile Exploration Team Alpha, accompanied by some members of the Iraqi National Congress, found a trove of relics from those synagogues and other lost institutions of Iraqi Jewish life in the flooded basement of the Al Mukhabarat building, which had been Saddam Hussein’s intelligence headquarters. Iraq at the time lacked the capacity to restore the damaged items, so they were brought back to the United States for restoration.

A haphazard reflection of the rich history that Iraq’s Jews were compelled to leave behind, the trove, now known as the Iraqi Jewish Archive, is a mix of the sacred and mundane, from Torah scrolls to telephone books.

In the 15 years since the archive came to the United States, as Iraqi Jews worked painstakingly to keep their traditions alive, they watched the international community focus more resolutely on the restitution of cultural property looted or stolen during the Holocaust, and wondered why the same standards seemed not to apply to them. They watched Saddam Hussein, who had overseen public hangings of Jews in 1969, be hung for his crimes, then watched Iraq struggle to craft a democracy after dictatorship. They watched years of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians fail to produce meaningful change; they watched wars throughout the Middle East broadly endanger the region’s cultural heritage.

Through all this, the 3,000-odd items of the archive were carefully preserved from the outside world. But world affairs have given them a new and unexpected meaning. Those same global shifts that Iraq’s exiled Jews witnessed from afar have made the archive an unlikely avatar for conversations about foreign policy and history that have the potential to create widespread repercussions.

To the dismay of the community, which has carefully preserved each proof of history left to it, those repercussions may be imminent: In September, despite efforts to retain it in the United States, the archive is scheduled to be sent back.

 

WHO OWNS THE ARCHIVE, ANYWAY?

“They have no right to give it back,” said Carole Basri, “because it’s not theirs.”

Basri, an adjunct professor of law at Fordham University and a documentarian whose work includes a film about Baghdadi Jews, is leading the Iraqi Jewish community’s legal effort to keep the archive in the U.S. She thinks there’s a legal case for breaking the agreement, she told me, rooted in Provision 17 of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. “You cannot take property from people illegally,” she said, paraphrasing the provision.

For the Iraqi Jewish community, there is no question about who owns the archive. The same is true for Iraq. “We cannot and will not relinquish ownership of the archive,” said Fareed Yasseen, Iraq’s ambassador to the United States. (Yasseen, who I spoke with at his Washington D.C. residence in July, took over the ambassadorship shortly after the 2016 election. A soft-spoken physicist, he briefly attended an Iraqi Jewish school in Baghdad as a child.)

AFP/Getty Images

The ceiling of the shrine of the Jewish prophet Zul Kifl, located in the Iraqi town of al-Kifl.

By the middle of the 20th century, the Jewish community in Iraq had been in continuous existence since the Babylonian exile of 596 BCE. The status of Jews had fluctuated in the early 1900s, but the community’s great troubles began in 1948, with the creation of Israel. In May of that year it became a capital offense for Iraqi Jews to immigrate to the newly recognized Jewish state, and many were arrested under suspicion of helping others attempt to do so. Over subsequent months, further strictures were enacted; policies mandated that Iraqi Jews who had immigrated to Israel and did not immediately return would be declared criminals and tried by military courts in absentia. A number of the people put to trial, including those who had immigrated legally, were symbolically sentenced to death.

Despite the heavy penalties attached to attempted escape — for example, imprisonment and hard labor — Jews continued to take the risk, often heading for then religiously open-minded Iran.

Then, in March 1950, the Iraqi Parliament passed a law that would allow Iraqi Jews to legally emigrate to Israel but strip those who did of Iraqi citizenship. Strict limits were placed on what these Jews were allowed to bring with them when they left. Individuals were permitted to carry 66 pounds of luggage, with a limit of 400 pounds per family. All jewelry had to be left behind, with the exception of wedding rings. Each person was also allowed to bring a minimal amount of cash in specific amounts that depended on their age.

Over the next several months, until August 5, 1951, Israel conducted a massive airlift of new emigrants out of Iraq, known alternatively as Operation Ezra and Nehemia and Operation Ali Baba. By the end of 1951, it was estimated that over 121,000 Jews had fled Iraq. The state seized the property they left behind. The majority of the Jews who remained in Iraq after 1951 departed in the early 1970s, after Saddam Hussein’s government cracked down on the Jewish community in the wake of Israel’s victory in the Six Day War. In 1969, nine Jews were hanged publicly, to massive celebrations, after which the regime arrested, subjected to show trials and tortured many others.

By 2008, only about 10 Jews remained in Iraq.

HAIDAR HAMDANI/Getty Imag...

A house in a former Jewish neighborhood of Hilla, a city south of Baghdad, in 2015.

One reason the ownership of the archive appears to be up for debate is that the majority of the Jews who left Iraq did so voluntarily, but under duress. That was also the case for many European Jews who fled the Nazi menace, and the decades-long work of Holocaust reparations has established a mixed precedent as to what can and ought to be done with their property.

Ambassador Yasseen declined to discuss the grounds on which Iraq claims ownership of the archive. I asked Gina Waldman, president of the advocacy organization Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa (JIMENA) how the Iraqi Jewish community can claim ownership of materials left behind when their owners chose to leave.

“This was what was considered communal property,” Waldman said. “No one person could sign off and say, well, this synagogue now belongs to the Iraqi government.”

Basri, in an article outlining a legal argument for the United States to refuse to return the archive, refers to U.N. Resolution 242. Passed after the Six Day War, that statute calls for a “just settlement of the refugee problem.” Yet the Iraqi Jewish community has limited legal opportunities, says Patty Gerstenblith, director of DePaul College of Law’s Center for Art, Museum and Cultural Heritage Law. The State Department, Gerstenblith said, granted the archive a status known as immunity from seizure, meaning that courts cannot hear cases or issue orders about it. “Doesn’t matter if it’s stolen property,” she said.

That leaves only one option, which would be for the community to bring suit against Iraq. It’s unclear if such a claim could be heard in American court. “Usually,” Gerstenblith said, “when a government takes property away from its own citizens that’s not a violation of international law.”

What about the example of Holocaust restitution? Objects looted during the Holocaust can be recoverable so long, Gerstenblith said, as suits are brought by clearly identifiable owners. A less direct precedent has been set for communal property. “In a sense, the Holocaust expropriations have been treated as a unique set of cases,” Gerstenblith said. “Having said that, there’s no reason that a court couldn’t extend that to another historical circumstance.”

The Iraqi Jewish community has yet to attempt any legal action. In the short term, it’s unclear if they’ll have to, as the State Department would not comment on plans for the archive’s return. A spokesperson specifically declined a request to confirm that the current administration intends to return the archive in September, as scheduled. If the return is delayed, it won’t be for the first time.

This is the first of three articles on the Iraqi Jewish Archive. Come back tomorrow for part 2, “In Exile, Iraqi Jews Are Desperate To Reclaim Their Artifacts — But So Is Iraq” and Tuesday for part 3, “The Iraqi Jewish Archive’s Future Is Uncertain. Foreign Policy Depends On It.”

Read more: https://forward.com/culture/longform/405593/iraqi-jewish-archive-in-us-should-it-be-returned-to-iraq/

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• Politician

Members of the Congress discuss a decision to keep the Jewish archive and not return it to Iraq

12:05 - 19/07/2018

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Information / translation ..

A group of US congressmen from both parties is discussing a draft resolution that would keep the Jewish archives in the United States and not bring them back to Iraq, the GTI news agency reported Thursday.

"According to a source familiar with the consultations, this decision is due to be announced by the end of this week," the agency said in a translation report.

The archives contain tens of thousands of Jewish materials, including books, religious texts, photographs and personal documents of Iraqi Jews, and the Hebrew Bible with commentary from 1568, the Babylonian Talmud of 1793 and the 1815 version of the Jewish text Zohar, .

The US State Department said earlier it would return the Jewish archive to Iraq in September 2018, where US forces had stolen it and taken it to the United States in 2003 after it was discovered in the basement of the former Iraqi intelligence service in Baghdad. Ending / 25 z

http://www.almaalomah.com/2018/07/19/327435/

[Butifldrm]

found in one of the palaces of Saddam Hussein .. US efforts to preserve the Iraqi Jewish archives

 

 Twilight News    

 

 2 hours ago

 

 

A news agency revealed the existence of Jewish efforts to maintain and maintain the Iraqi Jewish archive.

"The Iraqi Jewish Archive contains sacred books and rare works," the JTA news agency said.

The archive was moved to the United States following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

According to the agreement between the two countries, Washington is obliged to return the Iraqi Jewish archive to Baghdad.

The effort comes in the wake of urgent legislation by well-known US politicians aimed at "saving" the Iraqi Jewish archive.

Earlier, US researchers and historians investigated materials for 15 years and transferred them to digital printouts, the site said.

The United States, in accordance with an agreement with Iraq, should return the original material to it after the study and ensure its safety, the end of next September.

As the deadline for the handover of the archives approached, Senate senators angered the Senate, demanding that the archive be kept in a safe place and accessible to all Jews.

According to the censors, the archive contains important information about the Jewish community in Iraq throughout history.

"There are very few Jews living in Iraq today. Most of them live outside the state, and it is not logical to keep the archives there."

Senators Chuck Schumer, Richard Blumenthal and Pat Tommy launched a bill that gives the United States the right to lengthen archiving.

It is noteworthy that the Jewish sites and newspapers, said that the Iraqi Jewish archive found in one of the palaces of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, was in a bad situation, which called the US administration to spend three million dollars to improve and restore.

 

Keywords: 

http://www.shafaaq.com/ar/Ar_NewsReader/9b57d764-d95c-4845-ac4a-b6cb1d8bdabe

[3n1]

thanks bufitldrm , so much history comes out of iraq , some of the earliest writings in the Bible refer back to iraq , in Genesis Abraham claimed the area of Ur which is south of modern day baghdad today as his home , when isis moved in they tried to destroy any biblical place and artifact they encountered .... all the best 

[Butifldrm]

Iraqi Jews are demanding the restoration of their nationality

2 hours ago

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NRT

Vice President of the Jewish Congress in Europe, Edwin Shukr, called for the return of the Iraqi nationality to the children of this religion who had departed from the country in previous periods, calling for recourse to the Iraqi judiciary to meet this demand .

The newspaper "Arabs" on Monday, August 20, expressed his thanks, saying in a speech during an international conference on the extermination of Yezidis by Dahesh, "he mentioned the idea of filing a request to the Federal Supreme Court in Iraq to restore the nationality of Iraqi Jews during his speech at the conference, "He then received contacts from a number of lawyers from inside and outside Iraq, offering to contribute to the application to the court . "

Shukr, an Iraqi-born Jew, highlighted in his speech before the conference the deportation process against his cousins in Baghdad, Basra and other Iraqi provinces in which they were present .

He pointed out that 40% of the population of the capital Baghdad in the second decade of the last century were Jews, but in the forties was the withdrawal of nationality and deportation .

"The situation in Iraq has not changed for the Jews after 2003, because despite the existence of a constitution governing the country can not any Iraqi Jew to regain his nationality confiscated from him . "

Shukr stressed the need to resort to the judiciary to deal with this issue and to return citizenship to Iraqi Jews to those who wish .

A number of researchers have confirmed earlier that the displacement of Jews from Iraq was due to the declaration of the establishment of Israel in 1948, where the Iraqi state allowed the displacement of them between 1950 and 1951, during a process known as "Operation Ezra and Nehemia" left about 140 thousand Iraqi Jews They were the mainstay of the middle and upper classes in central and southern Iraq, as well as 20,000 poor peasants from Kurdistan's Jews .

The Jews in Iraq are among the oldest Jewish communities in the world. Their history dates back to the last Assyrian Empire (911-612 BC), most of whom migrated from Iraq in 1948 after the seizure of their property and property and the overthrow of Iraqi citizenship. , 6% of the total population of Iraq in 1947 and decreased to about 0.1% in 1951.

http://www.nrttv.com/AR/News.aspx?id=3558&MapID=2

[Butifldrm]

Political situation

Tuesday 23 October 2018 04:46 PM

| Number of readings: 45

Auction to sell the effects of Iraq globally!

BAGHDAD / The head of the Committee on Information and Culture parliamentary former Sarwa Abdel Wahid, on Tuesday, an auction to sell the effects of Iraq globally.

"New York is preparing to inaugurate a painful stop from the systematic looting of Iraq's history by organizing an auction to sell a rare Iraqi artifact dating back to 850 BC amid a suspicious Iraqi official silence approaching a catastrophe," Abdul Wahid said in a statement received by Iraq News. Trading the history of the nation and the creations of a people through historical periods that complement each other. "

"We ask the Iraqi government in its diplomatic, cultural and media institutions for the reasons not to confront the attempts to sell the history of Iraq as if it is not responsible for its protection or is not concerned with its historical and legal value, which does not represent a particular stage, but is a wonderful extension of a civilization bent by outsiders and ignored by the leaders of institutions for their ignorance of their cultural, .

The Kurdish leadership stressed that "silence on the sale of this important part of the history of Iraq is a direct partnership to the crime on American territory," pointing out that "the lesson of the national position is not sophistry speech."

"The Iraqi government is called upon to act quickly to recover the stolen antiquities, and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism must play its role in uncovering stolen items, locating them and coordinating with the Ministry of Foreign

Affairs to start international action," the head of the parliamentary media and culture committee said.

http://aynaliraqnews.com/index.php?aa=news&id22=107209

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Press Statement

25.10.2018

The Embassy of the Republic of Iraq in Washington, in cooperation with the General Authority for Antiquities and Heritage is following up the sale of the Assyrian antiquities  exhibited at the Christi auction belonging to the period of  Assyrian Governor Ashurnasirpal II , which was exhibited at the Theological Seminary of Virginia. To prove its belonging to Iraq, the Iraqi embassy communicated with the parties involved and informed that this piece is under the protection of the law of Antiquities of Iraq.

In this regard, the Foreign Ministry continues to follow closely with the Office of the Attorney General in New York State, and the Office of the Undersecretary of State for Culture and Education to stop the sale of this important cultural heritage.

 

Dr. Ahmed Mahjoub

Spokesman for the Iraqi Foreign Ministry

25/10 /25

https://www.mofa.gov.iq/en/news/28638/press-statement

[Butifldrm]

2018/10/28 08:40

Number of readings  47

Section:  Iraq

 

Demanding swift action to prevent the sale of stolen national wealth

 

 

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A member of the Iraqi parliament, Rihan Hanna, on Sunday (October 28, 2018) called on the new foreign minister to act urgently and effectively to prevent the sale of traces of the province that fled outside Iraq during the occupation of an oppressive organization.

In this statement, Rehan said that the movement in this direction is by instructing the Iraqi embassies and consulates in the countries where the effects are sold for immediate action and preventing this disaster before it occurs.

"I call on the Minister of Foreign Affairs to start his ministerial program with an important and effective step in preventing the sale of Iraqi antiquities, especially in the era of the Assyrians and the Babylonian civilization, in addition to the Christian monuments that are unfortunate and painful to be smuggled and offered for sale abroad. Iraqi museums in the province of Nineveh during the black era of the occupation of Nineveh of the organization calling.

Rehan stressed that the Iraqi antiquities "a huge national treasure priceless must be protected and returned to Iraq as a sacred national heritage of the history of Iraq and its civilization that preceded the countries of the world and human."

Follow the obelisk

 

http://almasalah.com/ar/news/154335/مطالبات-بتحرك-سريع-لمنع-بيع-ثروة-وطنية-مسروقة

[Butifldrm]

The Assyrian sculpture stolen from Iraq will be auctioned by Christie in New York tomorrow

13:45 - 30/10/2018

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Information / Translation

The 3,000-year-old Iraqi Assyrian sculpture is set to fetch $ 10 million at the Christie auction in New York City on Tuesday, CNN reported in a report on Tuesday.

"The Assyrian sculpture, which was described as the finest example of Assyrian art, has entered the market for decades and represents a mural for one of the gods. If it reaches $ 11.9 million in the auction, it will set a new record at the Assyrian World Art Auction," it said.

The Iraqi Ministry of Culture had called for the restoration of the sculpture to the property, while activists suggested to hold a strong protest outside the building Christi auction during the sale, while the auction spokesman said that "the auction was reassured by the law enforcement authorities that there is no legal basis for the claim Cultural property in this case

". Ending / 25 z

https://www.almaalomah.com/2018/10/30/359454/

 

[Butifldrm]

The heritage of Iraq is displayed at world auctions at fictional prices

 

6 hours ago

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Digital Media NRT

The world's leading art auction house, Christie, has been able to sell Assyrian frescoes belonging to King Ashur Nasser Pal II for $ 35 million and $ 900,000.

On Wednesday, October 31, 2018, Christie, the world's leading art auction house, hosted a public auction to sell a 3,000-year-old Assyrian artifact in an ancient royal palace in Iraq at a price of 35 million to 900,000 US dollars.

The seven-foot-high frescoes decorated the walls of the northwestern palace of King Ashur Nasral II, who ruled from 883 to 859 BC. The artifact depicts a winged god, half a man, carrying a bucket and a cocoon representing fertility and protection of the king .

The newspaper "Daily Telegraph" quoted, for GE. Max Bernheimer, president of Christie's International Department of Antiquities, said: "The Assyrian sculpture is undoubtedly the finest in the market for more than a generation in terms of style, situation and subject matter."

And quotes carved from the palace Sir Austen Henry Layard British archaeologist, who led the excavations near Mosul in the middle of the nineteenth century, and he sold Sir Austin in 1859 to missionary American Henry Byron Haskell, where he transferred to the monastery ofVirginia Theological Seminary in the United States after a year .

It has been carved in the monastery for more than 150 years, but is now on sale, with the aim of funding a scholarship fund, Christie said .

Christie recorded a record price for Assyrian art in 1994, when she sold another sculpture for £ 7.7 million. But this sculpture is in better shape, depicting a winged shape from head to toe, and is therefore expected to be sold at a higher price .

Christie's spokesman said the sculpture was unearthed between 1845 and 1851 with the consent of the Ottoman sultan, referring to the existence of what he called a legitimate market for works of art from the ancient world acquired centuries ago and had a profound impact on Western culture, the spokesman said. He added that this is true of the Assyrian sculpture, and that is why Christie feels that selling the piece is legitimate and safe .

The Iraqi government has not issued any statement on this matter, until this moment, despite angry popular reactions from this move, which ignited the platforms of social networking.

 

http://www.nrttv.com/AR/News.aspx?id=6008&MapID=2

[Rugbylaird19]

I wonder if their last internationally recognized currency is included in their antiquities display.

[Butifldrm]

Report: Two Muslim youths saving a treasure for Christians in Mosul

 

One of the churches in Mosul after being restored from a crowd

2 hours ago

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Digital Media NRT

 Christian clerics hailed two Muslim youths on the right side of Mosul for hiding ancient Christian manuscripts that were inside a Chaldean church after a hasty takeover of the city in 2014 .

A report prepared by the "Reconciliation" project, supported by the "MICT and CFI"organizations and provided by NRT Arabiya with a copy of it, quoted the Christian cleric "Father Thabet" as saying that the two young men handed over the ancient Christian manuscripts to him after the restoration of Mosul from the hands of Daash, indicating that the two youths tried to hide those Manuscripts carefully during the period of control is calling on the city, being Christian books and may be punished by the organization because of it.

 "Father Thabet" explained that the ancient Christian manuscripts date back to about 800 years and are diverse and have reached many generations in the city of Mosul . The Chaldean Church is located in the Al-Shifa neighborhood on the right side of Mosul. It is located meters away from Al-Naqib Mosque. After entering the city, the first elements of the Church destroyed the church in 2014 and looted its contents dating from nearly a thousand years.

In the last century, the church was built as a school to learn Christianity before it became a Chaldean church .

http://www.nrttv.com/AR/News.aspx?id=6695&MapID=2

[Butifldrm]

2018-11-27 BY SOTALIRAQ

Iraqi workers begin to clean the remains of Babylon as a prelude to their entry into the global list

 

Translated by Hamid Ahmed

 

Above a building scaffold erected beside a site of ancient Babylonian ruins where Mohammed Ahmed immerses a sponge in water in a bucket and sweeps it around a prominent sculpture representing a dragon with a snake's head, one of the features of the famous Ishtar wall in Babylon, built more than 2,000 years ago. 
Ahmed, is a member of a team of 10 Iraqi technicians trained through a US-funded project for the restoration and maintenance of the Babylon Monument site. The objective is to improve the status of the ruins of Babylon. 
"Babel was the first city in history," said Haider Bassem, a 29-year-old Iraqi technician who grew up near the historic city. "We want to work here because we love this city," said 
Jeff Allen, an American conservation expert working for the International Archaeological Heritage Foundation in New York. "You have to work extraordinarily cautiously with a building stone that is more than 2,000 years old. . "
Allen, who oversees Iraqi trainees, has spent more than nine years working at the site of ancient Babylon. His current project, funded by the US State Department and international organizations, is part of the Future of Babylon program, supported by the World Heritage Archaeological Trust Fund, which aims to preserve the site. 
Initially, the aim was to increase the stability and stability of the walls and ceilings of the monumental building from the risk of collapse. Now an important part of the program has been dedicated to the training of Iraqi local technicians, most of whom are workers and farmers from neighboring villages. The program prepares local cadres with skills in a region with high unemployment, which also helps to protect the effects of Babylon. 
"The salts leaked between the stones of the building and worked to break up the work on the cobblestones and make them separate," Allen says.
After the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, military helicopters landed there. The Polish army, part of the international coalition, occupied a military base at the ancient site of Babylon, where it built watchtowers and fences there. 
The Iraqi oil ministry has even extended an oil pipeline through the site, where it was forced to lift it last month after the Antiquities Authority filed a lawsuit against it. 
Allen says that damage and neglect was part of the reason why Babylon was not rehabilitated as an international heritage site, noting that despite all the other recent damage to the site, it deserves to be part of the international cultural heritage. 
The archaeological site of Babylon extends to an area of 4 miles to two miles. Because of the construction of the site on layers, a small part of it has been excavated. The upper layer of the massive Ishtar Gate was excavated by German archaeologists in 1899 and rebuilt at the Bergman Museum in Berlin.
Although Iraqis boast of a heritage and civilization that produced the world's first code of laws and building cities, they do not necessarily value the value of its archaeological sites. "Did you come from Baghdad to see these ruins and the dust?" The news site points to an Iraqi policeman who asked the visitors of the site with admiration at a nearby checkpoint. 
As a first step, the Iraqi engineer Salman Ahmed, drawing a map of the work of excavation, using an electronic application to document each stone piece of the total stones of 30 thousand pieces. 
If Iraq's request for the designation of Babel as a World Heritage site is accepted, it will give the Iraqi Heritage Authority an additional power within the government to protect the site. It will also provide an incentive for more tourists to visit the site and possibly carry out other excavation activities in the area.
Swedish archaeologist Olof Pedersen, a professor of Assyrian studies at the University of Uppsala, Sweden, who works on the future project of Babylon's archeological site, says: "Babel was the largest city in history and only 10 percent of its surface layers were excavated." 
Pederson visited Iraq for the first time In 1979, and is still eager to continue its activity. "Almost everything here is still undiscovered, we know the names of the different temples here and where they are located," he says as he walks through the city's streets. There are a lot of new hidden objects that can be uncovered by prospecting and we hope to achieve that in the coming decades. " 
About: NPR News Website 
By: Jane Araff

https://www.sotaliraq.com/2018/11/27/عمّال-عراقيّون-يبدأون-تنظيف-آثار-بابل/

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Expert: The Americans and the Federations stole 60% of the Iraqi antiquities

17:02 - 28/11/2018

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Information / special ... 
confirmed the academic specialist on the ancient art of Mohammed Jassim al - Obeidi, on Wednesday, that Iraq is extracted and discovered raised so far 12% , while still 88% unexcavated reported, noting that "50 to 60 percent of the discovered were stolen since 2003 until Alan On US troops and bandit gangs. 
"Iraq has traces and archaeological sites dating back to different times that have not yet been excavated," al-Obeidi told al-Maalouma. "It remains an information for Iraq's history." 
He added that "more than 88% of the effects of Iraq has not been excavated so far and not discovered," noting that "what was discovered and extracted does not exceed 12%."
He pointed out that "the effects extracted were exposed to three stages of theft after 2003 and the rate of theft from 50 to 60%," noting that "the first phase of theft was carried out through the Americans and gangs specialized and was after 2003 directly, while the second phase is purely American stage where The Americans settled in the archaeological areas and took a dig and stole one. " 
He explained that "the third stage is the stage of criminal and theft of stolen precious monuments and have a great historical value in Nineveh." 
He added that "some countries by the agreements returned many of the effects, and still are spread to many without the world, including the Jewish archive."

https://www.almaalomah.com/2018/11/28/368537/

[Butifldrm]

 

Maliki's coalition policy : an Iraqi official took money for his silence on the sale of a Babylonian wall in America

 

 Twilight News    

 

 6 hours ago

 

 

The deputy of the coalition of state law, high Nassif on Monday, the National Security and Intelligence and Integrity Commission to investigate the reasons for the failure of the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Culture and the concerned parties to file a lawsuit against the American auction, which sold the Babylonian archaeological mural in New York.

"The crime of silence and disregard for the offer and sale of one of the most important Iraqi antiquities in an international auction is not very different from the smuggling of antiquities and trading in terms of legal consequences, especially if the official concerned received a large sum of money," Nasif said in a statement. Bribe for his silence and not to file a lawsuit against the auction that displayed those effects. "

 Naseef stressed the need for the National Security Agency, the Intelligence Agency, the Integrity Commission and the regulatory authorities to investigate the issue of silence on the sale of the old Babylonian archeological wall at a New York auction, and expedite the filing of a lawsuit against the party that presented it and address the US Embassy in this regard. "He said.

 

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http://www.shafaaq.com/ar/Ar_NewsReader/3927841c-6fd8-4c8b-8c34-1096f3270003

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2018/12/16 09:22

• Number of readings 251
• Section: Iraq
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Iraq plans to sue US states

 

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq plans to sue US states in international courts.

The case is a result of procrastination by the US side to restore Jewish supervision of Iraq.

The US forces, when they entered Iraq in 2003, seized thousands of documents and documents taken from the bottom layer destroyed by the secret intelligence building "intelligence" in Baghdad, including 2,700 documents of the Jewish component of Iraq.

The documents were transferred within the framework of an agreement between the Coalition Provisional Authority and the US side to manage the national documents in Washington for the purpose of restoration and then return them after a period of not more than ten years to the Iraqi government, but the issue has been stalled by the American side since then.

The Undersecretary of the Ministry of Culture and Chairman of the Higher Committee for the Management of Lost Iraqi Documents Taher Al-Hamoud said in a press statement: "Under the Diwani Order, 46 national committees were formed under the chairmanship of the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Culture and representatives of the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and National Security. Including the general archive of the state's intelligence and security institutions of the former regime, some sensitive documents relating to the Baath Party, leadership and individuals, as well as the Jewish archive, which was delivered under a memorandum of understanding signed hastily between the Coalition Provisional Authority And the American side. "

Al-Hamoud stressed that "the Nara Foundation should restore the archive and its number in a contemporary manner and then return it to the Iraqi government."

But Hamoud's features appeared to show signs of discontent because of the lack of commitment on the part of the American side to return the archive on the grounds that it is a return to the Jewish component, pointing out that the decision of the Secretariat General of the Council of Ministers in 2010 was clear when he confirmed that this archive is national and the Iraqi government can restore it, Since 2014, the United States has not made any promises it made to us, but some media outlets announced that it would be back in September 2018, a time we had no prior knowledge of as a commission.

For his part, Dr. Abdul-Amir Al-Hamdani, a specialist in archeology, called for the restoration of the Jewish archive to Iraq and to take immediate and decisive measures under the document, which was violated and not implemented by the American side, which proved over the past years its credibility in returning the archives to the country. The evidence of the existence of the archive at the National Documents Center in Washington after the completion of restoration and maintenance for more than ten years, pointing out that the right decision to preserve the sovereignty of the state to return everything related to Iraq documents and relics, albeit under the pretext of Taking advantage of a loophole to breach the earlier agreement and not to implement it within the specified period. 

The Undersecretary of the Ministry of Culture and Chairman of the National Committee, "there are requests to extend the period by the American side, which can be approved, but on specific terms, one of which is this extension last, and in the case of non-compliance with one of the terms of the Convention in its recovery we have only the international judiciary.

"The ministry has set up special warehouses to keep the Jewish archive in order to absorb it. However, logistically, we need some time to complete it and receive the archive according to the time limit for its restoration in terms of the Jewish archive."

Al-Hamoud said, "As far as the disbanded Baath Party is concerned, no official authority has taken it to Harvard University in California. There were no details about this archive until the Iraqi side over the past years, With the American side until there is a confirmation of the existence of this archive has developed a mechanism to restore it, as is the case for the archive of the Iraqi state, which includes hundreds of thousands of documents from the security centers and ministries, which is called «Doha Archive», which was placed at the base of Al-Sailiya in the Qatari capital Doha.

He noted "the existence of negotiations reached an advanced stage in the recovery without some logistical hurdles related to financial allocations and technical matters that prevent us from starting in it."

"The American Museum is using the Jewish archive materially after completing the restoration process, through the participation of seven mobile exhibitions, as well as the advertising materials and documentaries that it has dealt with until it became a source of material exploitation," said one of the experts on the subject. On the existence of a specialized website announced the American side through his intention to return the archive to Iraq, but not implemented. "

According to media reports, on May 5, 2003, US forces found 2,700 books and tens of thousands of documents, including a 400-year-old Hebrew Bible and a 200-year-old Talmudic book from Vienna.

Among the Jewish archives found is a small Passover prayer book dating back to 1902, a French-language prayer book dating back to 1930, a collection of sermons beautifully printed by a rabbi in Germany in 1692, and volumes full of records School for students from 1920 to 1975.

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http://almasalah.com/ar/news/158501/العراق--يعتزم-مقاضاة-الولايات-الامريكية-المتحدة

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"Israel" demands Iraq compensation for Jewish property

14:03 - 06/01/2019

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JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The Israeli newspaper The Times of Israel reported Sunday that Israeli efforts to file a lawsuit involving claims for compensation of 250 billion dollars from seven Arab countries, including Iraq, as well as Iran for property for Jews.

"As a result of the investigations and the 18-month research, the first claims concerning two countries, Tunisia with $ 35 billion and Libya with $ 15 billion, have been completed," the paper said in a translation.

"According to figures prepared by the Zionist government, the compensation claims for Tunisia and Libya have been completed with the amounts of $ 35 billion and $ 15 billion," said Agila Gamelil, the minister of social affairs.

"The total sum of the eight countries is 250 billion dollars, which includes the countries of Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Yemen and Iran."

"During the past 18 months, using the services of an international accounting firm, the Zionist government was looking at the value of property and assets left behind by Jews in those countries," the report said. Ending / 25 z

https://www.almaalomah.com/2019/01/06/380029/

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Israel to seek $250bn from Arab countries that expelled Jews to ‘restore their rightful property’

Published time: 7 Jan, 2019 16:10Edited time: 8 Jan, 2019 11:59

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Iraqi Jews leaving Lod airport (Israel) on their way to ma'abara transit camp, 1951 © GPO Israel

 

Israel will demand $250 billion in compensation from seven Arab countries and Iran for assets left by Jews forced to flee after the creation of the State of Israel, in an effort to correct the “historic injustice” of the pogroms.

The specific demands are being finalized for the first two of the eight countries, according to Hadashot TV news, which reported that Israel would seek $35 billion from Tunisia and $15 billion from Libya. Compensation will also be sought from Morocco, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Yemen and Iran.

Gila Gamliel, Israel’s Minister for Social Equality, who is coordinating the effort, said that the time had come to “correct the historic injustice of the pogroms [against Jews] in seven Arab countries and Iran, and to restore, to hundreds of thousands of Jews who lost their property, what is rightfully theirs.”

With the help of an international accountancy firm, the Israeli government has been quietly researching the value of property and assets that Jews were forced to leave behind when they left the countries in question, the Hadashot report said. Compensation, if it were received, would not be allocated to individual Jewish families, but would be distributed through a special Israeli state fund, according to the report.

An estimated 856,000 Jews fled 10 Arab countries after Israel was established in 1948, according to Justice for Jews from Arab Countries (JJAC). Until now, however, Israel has never formally requested compensation for Jews forced to leave Arab countries.

Meir Kahlon, chairman of the Central Organization for Jews from Arab Countries and Iran told the Times of Israel that at the time, Jews did not seek refugee status in the newly-created Israel as it was seen as a return to their “historic homeland” and the country’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, wanted to project an image of a state that was legitimate and could care for its people.

The move comes as the Trump administration in the United States prepares its long-awaited Israeli-Palestinian peace proposal — an effort which some analysts have already declared dead-in-the-water after the US, in a hugely controversial move last year, recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. It also relocated its embassy to the city, which Palestinians in turn consider as the designated capital of the State of Palestine.

In 2010, Israel passed a law which states that any peace deal must provide for compensation for Jews forced to flee Arab countries and Iran.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority has also sought $100 billion in compensation from Israel for assets left by Arabs forced to leave the lands controlled by Israel today. Palestinians have also sought a “right of return” for the surviving refugees and their descendants — a demand that has repeatedly been dismissed by Israel. The Trump administration also seems to have taken Israel’s side on that issue, halting funding for the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) last year.

In 2014, Israel officially made November 30 a national day to commemorate the exiting of Jews from Arab and Iranian lands. Each year the day is used to raise awareness of the subject and to promote the issue of compensation to Jews. That year, Canada also formally recognized the refugee status of its Jewish emigres who fled there after 1948.

At a 2014 event marking the displacement of Jews, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Arab countries had “compelled” Jews living in their territories to leave their homes and assets behind and that the state would “continue to act” so that the claims of those Jews “are not forgotten.”

https://www.rt.com/news/448252-israel-compensation-jews-arab-states/

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Baghdad Post Thursday, 04 April 2019 02:06 PM

 

The Foreign Ministry recovers antiques from Japan dating back to the 8th century BC

 

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the restoration of a number of artifacts from Japan. 
"With the constant efforts and continuous follow-up by the Embassy of the Republic of Iraq in Japan, for the second time in six months it succeeded in restoring relics dating back to the eighth century BC from the treasures of Nimrud, which had been in Tokyo since 1989," the ministry said in a statement. 
He pointed out that these pieces "are nine totals for the scaffold or clothing remnants of one of the kings or a significant person, which is very clear in which the development of the garment industry in terms of spinning, weaving, sewing, sewing, dyeing and adding jewelry, which shows the advanced capabilities reached by the great ancestors of Old Iraqis in the garment industry of the era, which may be the same methods currently used in the field of weaving fabrics and fixing dyes.
"The embassy is working with all its efforts to inventory the archaeological assets of our dear homeland in Japan, and we are working to restore them all, as well as open areas of cooperation with scientific institutions and museums that pay special attention to the civilization of Mesopotamia, As well as the presence of many civil society organizations in Japan that are working to promote future generations to study and understand the civilization of Mesopotamia, a civilization that is a legacy of all humanity, with its innovations and achievements. Throughout the ages. " 
He pointed out that "the embassy will transfer these relics to Baghdad as soon as possible."

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