Point of No Return

Proof that Jews in Iraq wore the keffiyeh

bataween | Posted on 20 February 2026 | No Comments |

One could hardly call the swarthy Tal Oran, an Israeli whose family was expelled from Iraq, a ‘white supremacist’. Oran has an Instagram and Youtube channel, The Traveling Clatt, devoted to exploding myths and lies. One myth is the origin of the keffiyeh, the head covering closely associated with Palestinian nationalism. Now Oran has found proof, at the Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center near Tel Aviv, that Jews departing Iraq wore the traditional keffiyeh. (With thanks: Edna)

*Tal Oren found photographic evidence that Jews wore the* keffiyeh

Here on CBS News Oran explains the origins of the keffiyeh, which was worn by all sects and religions in Iraq. It recalls the fishing nets of the marsh Arabs and the two rivers of Mesopotamia, the Tigris and the Euphrates.

Yasser Arafat made the keffiyeh the symbol of the Palestinian cause. In fact the Palestinians and their supporters are guilty of cultural appropriation.

The Middle East was a rich tapestry of sects and religions until ‘Arab supremacists’ expelled minorities. The ‘Mizrahi story’ of ethnic cleansing was central to understanding the conflict, says Oran, but the most important message he wishes to impart is aimed at US Christians: ‘They are coming for you next.’

Instagram clip

More about the ‘keffiyeh’

Palestinian constitution would discriminate against women and Christians

bataween | Posted on 20 February 2026 | No Comments |

The Palestinians have published their 1926 draft Constitution: in contradiction to international treaties it has signed but never published, it imposes Sharia (Islamic) law on women and minorities. It only mentions Christians and omits Jews altogether. Elder of Ziyon has this analysis:

*Mahmoud al Habbash, religious affairs adviser, helped draft the new Constitution*

Under the personal status laws that govern Muslim Palestinians, inheritance follows Sharia rules: women receive half the share of male relatives. Polygamy is permitted for Muslim men. Marital rape is not a crime — the 1960 Penal Code that applies in the West Bank defines rape as applying only to a woman who is not the perpetrator’s wife. The Family Protection Bill, which would have addressed domestic violence, was blocked on the grounds that it conflicted with Sharia. None of this has been amended.

Non-Muslim citizens exist within a legal framework whose primary source is explicitly not their faith. Article 37 guarantees freedom of religious practice for “followers of monotheistic religions” — but the legislation their rights depend on is shaped by Sharia. The constitution provides no mechanism by which this changes.

And for anyone who might leave Islam: the ICCPR — the treaty the PA signed and never published — guarantees the right to change one’s religion. Under classical Sharia jurisprudence, apostasy is a capital offense. The PA has not published the ICCPR. It has not abolished the death penalty. The Second Optional Protocol committing it to do so was also never published.

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JNS article

Marrakesh: where did all the Jews go?

bataween | Posted on 19 February 2026 | No Comments |

Marrakesh has a museum showcasing Jewish artefacts and history, but nowhere is it mentioned that Jews left Morocco for their safety. Jack Mendel reports on his visit in Jewish News:

Setting off into the 34 degree heat, past stalls with Palestinian flags near the main square; all of a sudden I saw a Star of David on the wall. But it was crossed out. Indeed, I saw a few like this. Now, I’m no detective but I suspect these were linked to the war in Gaza, yet it’s no less unsettling for an actual Jewish person to walk past.

I visited the House of Photography of Marrakech museum, where there was a whole section showcasing hundred-year-old photographs of Marrakechi Jews, and Berber Jews, from the nearby mountains. Unfortunately, the poster explaining it was mistranslated: ‘The Jew [singular] of Marrakech’.

While this was a typo, it left me wondering how many were actually left? The museum certainly didn’t explain where all the Jews went, and why, and how many remained. Intrigued at how this once-thriving community lived, I headed to the Mellah.

I stopped at a cafe ironically called Mazel. There’s no discernible acknowledgement of what that word means, or a nod to its Jewish links, or even where it is.

But those who know, know. In the Mellah, down narrow residential roads, the Laazama synagogue is marked out on the Talmoud Thora street. It’s 50 dirham (about four pounds) to get in, and the shul doubles up as a museum. As you go in, the bimah is by the entrance, with a large ornate ark at the front, built into the wall. All around the shul hall are wooden chairs with blue cushions, marriage certificates, Judaica, tzedakah boxes and photos from the past. It felt like a synagogue, alright. And it is still functioning.

As you step outside, there is a peaceful courtyard with a fountain and citrus trees. There’s a second floor closed to the public, with blue and white curtains, and a shop whose manager started blowing shofars, on sale for about £20. It felt pristine and delicate, but somewhat preserved.

The museum element has an exhibition about its Jewish past – the Bnei Menasche – and it even mentions Israel a few times. There are historic scrolls and jewellery, books and portraits, in addition to short films and other historical explanations. One remarkable thing was how much I recognised. The hundred-year-old books had the same prayers. The children in the pictures are messing around in shul just like I used to. But even so there is not a great deal of information about the present.

Nowhere does it mention that many Jews left fearing for their safety, or because they felt locals would become hostile due to the creation of Israel, or subsequent wars. There were riots across the Middle East and north Africa. Historic, once-thriving communities were uprooted. While many left, lots of this community are also buried down the road in the cemetery, and many of the graves are from the last 50-60 years.

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Nearly half polled Syrians want normalisation

bataween | Posted on 19 February 2026 | No Comments |

Syrians are taking friendlier attitudes toward Israel under the government of Ahmed al-Sharaa, a new YouGov survey suggests. JNS reports:

The survey, which the Council for a Secure America commissioned, found that 59% of Syrians think that peace with Israel is likely, compared to 14% that believes it’s unlikely.

Almost two-thirds of respondents support a security arrangement with Israel, and less than 10% disapproved. Nearly half want normalization with Israel after a resolution with the Palestinians, and 40% are undecided on that issue, per the poll.

Respondents expressed disdain for Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed terror group that long controlled Southern Lebanon and was aligned with longtime Syrian President Bashar Assad, who was deposed in December 2024.

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Macron gives ringing condemnation of Islamist antisemitism

bataween | Posted on 18 February 2026 | 1 Comment |

It is 20 years since Ilan Halimi was kidnapped and tortured to death by a mainly Muslim gang called the Barbarians. Planting a tree in Ilan’s memory, French President Emanuel Macron delivered a refreshingly frank condemnation of the Islamist antisemitism which has claimed the lives of several Jews in the last decade – most of them of North African origin. His speech, reproduced in full by Tablet, does not obfuscate the Jewish identity of the victims or blame the murders on mental health issues or the actions of ‘lone wolves.’ We hope that that the French authorities will follow up Macron’s words with deeds.

“Ilan Halimi had his whole life ahead of him. A loving family—his mother, Ruth, and his sisters. Friends, dreams. Dreams like those you have at 23, and the smile of someone who looks at others as a promise.

Ilan Halimi was Jewish. And it is because he was Jewish that, for 20 years now, he has been missing from us all.

It is because he was Jewish that he was subjected to an unspeakable ordeal, a 24-day calvary straight out of the darkest ages.

Everything about the barbaric horror that unfolded 20 years ago inspires dread: Ilan’s abduction—conceived, premeditated, organized. His confinement in a cellar in Bagneux. The belief that, because he was Jewish, he must have had the means to pay unimaginable ransoms. The absurdity of antisemitic prejudice, the machinery of torture, the denial of his humanity.

Everything is dreadful. The barbarity of the murderers, the cruelty of their accomplices, the cowardly pact of those who pretended not to see.

Everything is dreadful. And this dread cannot fade, because over the past 20 years, antisemitic barbarism has not retreated. On the contrary, it has continued to regenerate.

The barbarism of those who, by desecrating a memorial, vandalizing places erected in his memory, uprooting his tree, sought to kill Ilan Halimi a second time.

The barbarism of the terrorists of Ozar Hatorah, who, in 2012, took the lives of Myriam Monsonego and Jonathan, Arié, and Gabriel Sandler.

The barbarism of the jihadists of the Hyper Cacher, who, in 2015, murdered Yohan Cohen, Yoav Hattab, Philippe Braham, and François-Michel Saada.

The barbarism of the murderers of Sarah Halimi, of Mireille Knoll, of René Hadjadj—and I do not forget Sébastien Selam.

The barbarism beyond our borders of those who attacked the synagogue of El Ghriba, that of Heaton Park.

The barbarism of the murderers of Bondi Beach.

Yes, in 20 years—and despite the determined action of our police officers, gendarmes, magistrates, teachers, and elected officials—the antisemitic hydra has continued to grow. Constantly taking on new faces, it has infiltrated the intimacy of our societies, every crack and crevice, once again too often accompanied by the same cowardly pact: not to speak, to refuse to see.

Islamist antisemitism—the one at the origin of the pogrom of Oct. 7—which preachers of hatred attempt to spread on our soil, in physical spaces as well as online, sometimes with the complicity of foreign media, seeking to reign through terror.

The antisemitism of the far left, which seeks to replace class struggle with a supposed racial struggle, through chilling amalgams, competing with that of the far right and its clichés about power and wealth.

Antisemitism that wears the mask of anti-Zionism to advance quietly. The kind that exploits criticism of Israeli government policy to delegitimize, assign, and deny the right to exist of the Hebrew state—and ultimately denies Jews themselves the right to live. The same antisemitism that, in a vertiginous historical inversion, seeks to portray Jews as genocidal perpetrators, in an unacceptable and odious manner.

Digital antisemitism, fueled by algorithms and the culpable inaction of platforms, reaching ordinary people, corrupting our youth, multiplying itself, harassing thousands of our fellow citizens deep into their private lives—haunting days and nights, dreams and imaginations.

All these contemporary expressions of antisemitism, recombining with its older forms, make possible the intolerable banality of evil.”

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More about Ilan Halimi and other victims

Bostom: ‘Jew-hatred is baked into Islamic religious thought’

bataween | Posted on 17 February 2026 | No Comments |

In this episode of “Think Twice” JNS editor Jonathan Tobin talks to Dr Andrew Bostom, author of a number of important works about Islamic radicalism, including the new A Modern Qur’anic Kampf Against the Jews. His book is a translation with commentary of a highly influential text written by Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi, the late head of Al-Azhar University in Cairo, widely considered the “Muslim Vatican,” which argues that Jew-hatred is baked deep into both Islamic culture and traditional religious thought.

*Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi was Grand Imam of the Islamic world’s most influential institution, Al-Azhar university, Cairo*

According to JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin, reporting and commentary on the shocking levels of Jew-hatred among Muslims has been silenced out of fear of accusations of racism and prejudice. But most of what is labeled Islamophobia is just truth-telling about how conspiracy theories and hate speech about Jews have become normative in the Islamic community.

Bostom points out that the polling done by the Anti-Defamation League, including some results that were apparently considered so shocking that the group didn’t publish them, has demonstrated just how pervasive antisemitic attitudes are among Muslims around the world and in the United States.

The notion that Muslim Jew-hatred is merely the product of resentment of the state of Israel or concern for the Palestinians is utterly false, says Bostom. And far from cherry-picking outrageous quotes from an otherwise unexceptional text, Boston’s translation of Tantawi’s screed illustrates that the vilest forms of hate directed at Jews is part of mainstream Muslim thought. What is most shocking about Tantawi’s antisemitic book is not just the way he shows how antisemitism is mainstream in Muslim thought or the way he mixes traditional anti-Jewish tropes with modern conspiracy theories about Jews (such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion). It’s the fact that Tantawi was considered a moderate Muslim and not as extreme as many other Islamic religious figures.

A big part of the problem, however, is the failure of the West, including Jewish groups and leaders who prioritize the idea of interfaith dialogue above defending their communities against hate, to directly call out Muslim antisemitism. Too many people are, Bostom says, simply afraid of being accused of Islamophobia. Christians and Jews must find the courage to tell Muslims, “We won’t accept you at interfaith dialogue meetings if you’re going to preach this way. Just stop it. We’re aware of it. Stop it. It’s ugly. Don’t do it.”

See video

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Syrian Jew: my co-workers wanted to kill me

bataween | Posted on 16 February 2026 | No Comments |

After the Aleppo anti-Jewish riots in 1947, all but 5,000 Jews of Syria’s 30,000-member community left. Haroun Abadi’s family remained. Seven-minute video clip on Themizrahistory (with thanks: Edna):

Haroun (Harry) Abadi was born and raised in Aleppo, Syria to a Jewish family and escaped the country through Lebanon on the back of a sheep wagon in the 80s. Harry recounts just some examples of antisemitism he and his community experienced, both systemically and by ordinary people in society, prompting him and many others to plan an exit route.

Common courtesies were not reciprocated, and Abadi felt embarrassed to be a Jew. His Jewish maths teach advised him not to resist if he was beaten up. Children threw stones but his synagogue was not permitted a protective wall. The government advised windows at high level. Abadi, who escorted a Christian girl to school, found that she never spoke to him after he told her he was Jewish.

Jewish families would disappear, having escaped the country. But any relative who stayed behind would be jailed.

Abadi qualified as an electrical engineer but most jobs were barred to him as a Jew. When his co-workers found out he was Jewish they wanted to kill him. He lasted just 17 days in his job.

Haroun Abadi escaped in the mid-1980s and now lives in the US.

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Astronaut with Iraqi-Jewish roots blasts off into space

bataween | Posted on 16 February 2026 | 1 Comment |

Jessica Meir, whose father was Joseph Haim Meir, an Israeli-Iraqi-Jew born in Baghdad in 1925, is the first Mizrahi astronaut. She is on her second mission to the International Space Station along with three other US, Russian and French astronauts. The mission will last eight months.

Jessica Ulrika Meir is a NASA astronaut, marine biologist, and physiologist. Born to a Swedish mother and Israeli father of Iraqi-Jewish descent.

Meir was selected by NASA in 2013, and worked on the International Space Station on her first spaceflight as part of Expedition 61 and 62. As part of the expedition, Dr. Meir participated in the first all-female spacewalk. Amongst the belongings she took with her into space was an Israeli flag. Recently, she posted an image of Israel and the Middle East from space in honor of her father.

Since becoming an astronaut in 2013, Ms Meir has performed three spacewalks and lived at the International Space Station, returning to Earth in April 2020 after 205 days in orbit.

She previously spoke about her identity, telling the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that while she is not religious, her Jewish background is “a big part” of her culture and traditions.

Reach for the stars, astronaut tells kids of Iraq

Controversial Moroccan Muslim asks: ‘where are your Jews?’

bataween | Posted on 15 February 2026 | No Comments |

A Moroccan Muslim asks his fellow Arabs the question:’Where are your Jews? His Instagram video effectively summarises the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Arab world. But Mustapha Ezzarghani, who is the president of the Morocco-Israel Friendship Association, is patently a controversial figure in Morocco itself, as the Morocco World News article below demonstrates (with thanks: Michelle ):

Ezzarghani’s video explains that Arabs operate under two fantasies : Jews are either Biblical ghosts, frozen in time, or they are European colonial settlers who invaded Palestine. In reality, the Jews were not outsiders, but integral to the local culture.

‘We tell ourselves comforting lies,” he says. Jews ‘were protected’ in the Arab world until the advent of Israel, or the Zionists caused the Jews to leave.

In reality events such as the 1941 Farhud pogrom in Iraq, with its slaughter, rape and looting, predated the creation of Israel. Jews were targeted by mob violence and stripped of their rights by Arab governments.

Ezzarghani has evidently been in hot water with the Moroccan establishment before he made the video. Here is an extract from a piece by Adli Faouzi in Morocco World News accusing him of driving ‘a dangerous campaign’ against a Morccan diplomat:

“Ezzarghani, who positions himself as a civil society figure, is also the public face of MIFA – a lobbying entity operating in Washington. His attack, according to sources, stems from personal disappointment – reportedly due to not receiving an invitation to the Moroccan embassy’s Throne Day celebration this year – rather than any substantive concern for national policy.

Launched under the guise of advocacy, this campaign has been described by analysts as a soft coup attempt on Moroccan diplomatic sovereignty – executed through media articles and extended via back-channel pressure.

It sends a dangerous message: normalization with Israel is no longer sufficient; Morocco must now demonstrate affection, or risk being defamed and accused of bigotry.

Such a message has serious implications. According to analysts, targeting Morocco’s ambassador in this way risks eroding national consensus around foreign policy by subjecting it to the whims of external lobbies operating from Washington and Tel Aviv.

It seeks to force the kingdom into a position where it must present its credentials daily to a Moroccan-Zionist lobby in Washington – one that views Morocco not as an equal partner, but as a subordinate extension or mere backyard of Israel’s strategic interests.”

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Iranian-Jewish leader walks back regime criticism

bataween | Posted on 13 February 2026 | No Comments |

The Jewish community’s official representative in Iran, Homayoun Sameh, has walked back criticism he made of Iran’s president, affirming Jews’ full support for the regime. Efforts are continuing to obtain the release of a Jewish protester. YNet News reports:

Two Jews who were arrested on suspicion of involvement in protests in Tehran and Shiraz have been released following efforts by senior figures in Iran’s Jewish community. One Jewish detainee remains in custody, and significant efforts are also underway to secure his release.

Meanwhile, Dr. Homayoun Sameh, the Jewish representative in the Iranian parliament, marched Wednesday alongside Hakham Hamami Lalezar , one of Iran’s rabbis, and many members of the Jewish community in a rally marking Revolution Day and expressing support for the regime. Sameh voiced full support for the authorities in Tehran, after having criticized Iran’s president several weeks ago.

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