Jewish archive to be returned to Iraq
tion, any candidate running against Mr Trump in 2020 will need to focus hard on white working-class voters in the rust belt whose lack of support for the Democrats proved fatal to Mrs Clinton. On the face of it, a Californiabased tech billionaire may struggle to make that connection. Commentators observe that Silicon Valley has also lost some of its 1990s’ lustre. A columnist in USA Today last month suggested that an industry that once encapsulated the spirit of “personal liberation and empowerment… now seems to be creepy and controlling”.
Facebook itself has come under fire from both left and right over the past year. Some Democrats accused it of Zuckerberg’s 50-state tour has increased talk of a presidential bid doing too little to stop the spread of anti-Clinton “fake news” on its platforms, while conservatives leapt on allegations that the company suppressed right-wing news outlets from its “Trending Topics” section. Shoring up public trust in a company that would swiftly collapse without either may thus, in part, explain Mr Zuckerberg’s high-profile tour.
Unlike any of his potential opponents, he is in the fortunate position of being able to explore a campaign while retaining the ability to subsequently claim that his cross-country travels were nothing more than the actions of a diligent chief executive, should he choose not to run. A COLLECTION of historical Jewish artefacts are to be returned to Iraq next year, despite Jewish groups lobbying to keep them in the US. The collection of religious texts, photographs and personal documents were probably looted from Jewish families fleeing Saddam Hussein’s regime but have been in America since being retrieved by US troops during the 2003 invasion. However, a deal between the US and Iraqi governments, which allowed America to keep the artefacts, will expire in September 2018 and no extension has been arranged. Jewish groups, supported by Democratic and Republican lawmakers, have argued the documents should be kept in America, where Iraqi Jews and their descendants can access them. But Iraq has argued that they should be returned and used as an educational tool about the history of Jews. Gina Waldman, founder and president of Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa, told JTA: “There is no justification in sending the Jewish archives back to Iraq, a country that has virtually no Jews and no accessibility to Jewish scholars or the descendants of Iraqi Jews. “The US government must ensure that the Iraqi archives are returned to their rightful owners, the exiled Items were restored and digitised at the National Archives in Washington
Iraqi Jewish community.” When the collection was discovered in the basement of the Iraqi secret services headquarters, in Baghdad, it was soaked and damaged. Conservationists at the National Archives in Washington have worked to restore and digitise some 2,700 books and tens of thousands of documents. The Iraqi Jewish community was forced to flee under Saddam’s reign, during which it is likely that much of the collection was taken by looters.
Stanley Urman, executive vice-president for Justice for Jews from Arab
Countries, said returning the artefacts to Iraq would be “like returning stolen goods back to the thief”.
Marc Lubin, a government relations consultant who has worked on the issue, said the dispute had exposed problems with agreements around looted property.
Mr Lubin argued: “The reality is that the United States has entered into a number of agreements, in name of deterring looting, that in fact endorse foreign government claims on the property of Jews.”
He added: “These provisions violate American principles and need to be rolled back.”
It is like returning stolen goods to the thief’