AP Wire | 01/13/2005 | Israeli-Iraqis Have the Right to Vote
Israeli-Iraqis Have the Right to Vote
RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI
Associated Press
JERUSALEM - Tens of thousands of Israelis of Iraqi descent have the right to vote in the Jan. 30 elections - including a former defense minister and a comedian known for his sidesplitting imitations of Saddam Hussein - but it's hard to find anyone interested in actually casting ballots.
"Who should I vote for, Saddam Hussein? What do I have left in Iraq?" says market vendor Yehezkel Avraham, 73, whose family was expelled 57 years ago.
Still, some feel this may be a signal of better ties in the future.
Israelis of Iraqi descent who were stripped of their citizenship need two documents proving their heritage to register, said Sarah Tosh, of the Out-of-Country Voting Program based in Amman, Jordan, which is organizing expatriates to cast ballots.
Registration and voting can be done in one of 14 countries designated as Out-of-Country voting centers, including the United States, Australia, Britain, Germany and France - but not Israel. The closest site for them to vote is Jordan.
Absentee ballots are not permitted.
Most Israeli-Iraqis say they won't vote. Some say it would be difficult to travel to the voting places abroad, while others have bitter memories of Iraq's expulsion of the Jews after the establishment of Israel in 1948.
Yitzhak Ben-Moshe, 72, fondly remembers growing up in Baghdad. He also recalls jumping from roof to roof to avoid persecutors during riots in 1941, and the expulsion order his father received in 1949.
"Who would I vote for? Do I know them? Are they from my generation?" Ben-Moshe asked as he played backgammon and sipped mint tea at Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda market. "Here we barely know who to vote for."
Tosh said Iraqi election regulations bar discrimination "on the basis of gender, religion, sect, race, belief, ethnic origin, language, wealth or literacy."
The Iraqi Electoral Commission said no Iraqi who can prove citizenship will be discriminated against, but it appeared to bristle at the thought of Iraqi Jews living in Israel participating in the election.
When asked about voting by Israeli-Iraqis, Farid Ayar, spokesman of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, said Tosh had no authority to speak on the issue. He did not deny that Israeli-Iraqis were eligible, however.
Mordechai Ben-Porat, who led the Jewish underground in Iraq and was jailed and tortured, said he understands the commission's wariness. The idea of ties to the Jewish state is anathema for many Iraqis.
"They don't want to be exposed as though they are already creating ties with Israel. They are being careful in the meantime, but in the future this is a positive thing," said Ben-Porat, who helped Israeli intelligence organize the 1950s exodus from Iraq.
Of the 290,000 Iraqi Jews abroad worldwide, about 244,000 live in Israel, said Ben-Porat, head of the Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center near Tel Aviv. Twenty-nine percent were born in Iraq, and once had great economic and social influence there.
"If there was a polling place in Israel I would encourage people to vote," Ben-Porat said. "Just like Americans in Israel vote in the U.S. election ... Iraqis can also."
Israeli Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, a former defense minister, was born in Iraq in 1936. He is willing to lead peace negotiations between the countries in his native Arabic, but the idea of voting in the Iraqi election makes him laugh.
"It is the opening of an interesting policy in the Iraqi leadership which could eventually lead to the fulfillment of a Baghdad-Jerusalem (peace) track," Ben-Eliezer told Israel Radio.
Ran Cohen, 66, a dovish lawmaker in Israel's parliament, was also born in Baghdad. Forced to flee at age 11 after his eldest brother was arrested for Jewish underground activity, Cohen is glad the Iraqi traditions of family unity and warmth have remained in Israel, but has no desire to vote.
"I smile to myself that suddenly I have the right to vote in another country," he said.
Among those eligible to vote would be Eli Yatzpan, a comedian whose portrayals of Saddam, often going haywire with a pistol, have been a favorite among Israeli TV viewers.
Many Iraqi Jews remember swimming in the Euphrates River to cool off in Baghdad's hot summers. Israelis of Iraqi descent still prepare traditional Iraqi farina-stuffed dumplings and a potent soup with Kubeh.
"I make Iraqi Kubeh, the red one, the original," brags Miriam Tzach, 60, a native of Sulaimaniyah in northern Iraq.
Eli Amir, an Israeli author who was born in Baghdad, said using his right to vote would be unfair - the Iraqis have to decide their own fate.
"I miss the country, the view, the Euphrates, the dates, the palm trees, the amazing flowers of the winter, my city," Amir told Israel Radio.
"I want to go back there to see something from what was, but it is completely clear to me that today this is not my Baghdad. My Baghdad is ... in my heart, in my imagination, in my yearnings, in the beautiful childhood I had there."
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13-01-2005, 22:18
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