Iraqi speakers who called for peace with Israel face arrest

• Author: TOVAH LAZAROFF
• Published date: 26 September 2021
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

Two of the warrants issued by the Karkh First Investigation Court were for the Sons of Iraq Awakening movement head Wisam al-Hardan and an employee in the Culture Ministry, Sahar Karim al-Ta'i.

They spoke at a conference in the Iraqi Kurdistan capital Erbil, with some 300 Sunni and Shi'ite Iraqis, promoting ties with Israel. A warrant was also issued for former Iraqi Parliamentarian Mithal al-Alusi, also believed to have been connected to the event, which was organized by the US-based Center for Peace Communications in Erbil.

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The court warned that it would arrest all participants once their identities were known to authorities.

Israel has strong informal ties with the Kurdish region of Iraq, but these ties have not extended to the rest of the country, and even in Kurdistan there was an immediate backlash to the conference that had initially raised hope among Israelis seeking to widen the regional circle of peace.

The Kurdistan region's Interior Ministry said it had not authorized the event, which it said did "not reflect the position of the Kurdistan Regional Government and we will be taking the necessary legal measures against the organizers."

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi has formally rejected the call in Erbil for peace with Israel, stating his public support for the Palestinians.

The Iraqi news site Shafaq.com reported that Hardan had retracted his comments in favor of normalization.

In an opinion piece published Friday in The Wall Street Journal, however, Hardan mentioned the Erbil meeting and called for peace with Israel.

"More than 300 of my fellow Iraqis from Baghdad, Mosul, Al-Anbar, Babel, Salahuddin and Diyala joined me Friday in this northern city, where we issued a public demand for Iraq to enter into relations with Israel and its people through the Abraham Accords," Hardan wrote.

"We will seek face-to-face talks with Israelis. No power, foreign or domestic, has the right to prevent us from moving forward. Iraq's anti-normalization laws, which criminalize civil engagement between Arabs and Israelis, are morally repugnant," he explained.

Hardan also referenced the "mass exodus and dispossession of the majority of our Iraqi Jewish population, a community with 2,600 years of history, in the mid-20th century.

"Through their forced migration, Iraq effectively cut one of its own principal veins. Yet we...