In Private, Iraqis Support Peace With Israel

After Hussein, the pro-Iran militias continued his inhumane policies. Militia thugs stole property by forging deeds, justifying their theft by accusing the owners of having been Hussein’s partisans. The Islamic State takeover and the ensuing war to eject it caused the death and displacement of millions of Iraqis, many of whom still live in one of twenty-eight refugee camps today. Their property was confiscated by Islamic State, then by pro-Iran militias. The Christian minority in the northwest was forced to organize its young men into an armed militia to protect whatever property it had left, including church buildings.

Chemical weapons, assassinations, random violence, loss of property, and displacement can barely describe what Iraqis have suffered over the past half-century. Starting in 2011, Syrians have caught up with Iraqis, also suffering from chemical weapons and ethnic cleansing. Yet both Iraqis and Syrians are expected to ignore their pain and instead feel angry when Israelis and Palestinians hurl rocks at each other or uproot olive trees. That America should look at the unfolding events in Iraq, Syria, and the Palestinian territories and decide that the “central cause” of injustice is Palestine has only increased the sense of injustice among Iraqis and Syrians, making many of them harbor ill feelings toward the “Palestinian cause.”