Look who's NOT voting

Yesterday, on French TV, I saw a report about expatriate Iraqis voting in the upcoming elections in Iraq. Iraqis residing in France must go to Paris to register but the rules about who gets to vote seem pretty lax - not only do expatriates get to vote but their voting-age offspring (even born in France) will also be allowed to vote.

So you'd think the same rules would apply to all expatriate Iraqis, right? NOPE.

While Iraq is making provision for Iraqi exiles in more than 14 countries to vote in the Jan. 30 election, some 90,000 Jews who fled Iraq for Israel will be excluded from participating.

That's the word from Iraqi officials who say the exclusion is due to the fact that the newly liberated nation still does not recognize the Jewish state.

The government said yesterday allowing Israelis of Iraqi origin to participate in the country's elections under the Out of Country Voting program was "out of (sic) question."

Just a few days ago, in the Jerusalem Post, the situation was presented in a more positive, if not encouraging, light. (Emphasis mine)

"Every Iraqi who wants to vote can vote. We don't care if the Iraqi voters are Muslim, Christian or Jewish," Farid Ayar, the head spokesman for the ICI, told The Jerusalem Post.

According to voting regulations, anyone who is Israeli-born but has a father who is Iraqi-born can vote, regardless of other citizenships. Iraqi law grants citizenship only to children with Iraqi fathers, not mothers.

Israeli turnout is likely to be low – the closest polling station to Israel is in Amman, Jordan.

Some 130,000 Iraqi Jews immigrated to Israel after the establishment of the state. Today, there at least 75,000 Iraqi-born Israeli citizens but the number of eligible voters – including their children – is much higher. Iraq's Out-of-Country Voting (OCV) committee decided not to open a polling station in Israel, whose population of eligible voters is much greater than other countries with polling stations, for example, the Netherlands.

Asked why Israel doesn't have a polling station, Ayar, whose organization is the independent body of Iraqi citizens that determined the stipulations for voter eligibility and the location of the polls, said it "is because Iraq has no relations with this state, and we don't recognize this state."

Allowed to vote despite the fact that Iraq doesn't recognize Israel...and then not allowed to vote for the same reason. Confusing, to say the least. This article presents these very same potential voters as, well, not all that interested, actually.

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."
...
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.
...
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."

I can see his point and the point made above about Iraq not wanting to appear pro-Israel too quickly. But if Israel had been quietly included on the list of 14 countries that were being asked to set up polling stations, chances are no or little fuss would ever have been made about it. The case could have easily been made for including Israel due to the large community of Jews of Iraqi descent living there.

I can't help but feel that an opportunity was missed here. An opportunity for the new Iraq to set an example by just treating Israel like any other country...even if diplomatic ties are not yet established. And to establish itself as an independent thinker, capable of creating precedent when for a just cause.

Related:
UK-based Iraqis register for country's poll
Iraqi Exiles Make Long Haul To Sign Up For Vote