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 Iraq |  Palestine |
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Relations between the Arab Republic of Iraq and State of Palestine have historically been close, with Palestine Liberation Organization supported by the Ba'athist Iraqi regime during the second half of the 20th century, and vice versa, Iraqi Ba'athist regime supported by PLO leadership during the Gulf War. The State of Palestine has an embassy and consulate in Baghdad and Erbil accordingly, but Iraq doesn't have an embassy in Palestine. [1]
Iraq declared war on the newly established Jewish state of Israel in 1948; since then, relations between the two states have remained hostile. Iraq has strongly supported the cause of the Palestinians since then. Iraq sent armies to fight Israel in 1948 and 1967. Iraq also sent troops to provide back-up for Syria's armed forces in the Yom Kippur War in 1973.
Saddam Hussein was widely revered in Arab nations for his anti-Israel stance [2] and has supported several Palestinian guerrilla and militant organisations, and during the last Second Intifada, Iraq subsidized families of Palestinian martyrs. In 1991, Hussein's army fired 39 Scud missiles at Israel. However, Israel did not retaliate due to pressure exerted by the US [3] and no further action has been taken from either side since.
According to British author Nigel Ashton, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin sent a message to Saddam Hussein through King Hussein of Jordan requesting a meeting between him and Saddam. Rabin hoped peace with Iraq might encourage Iran and Syria to do the same. Rabin was assassinated on November 4, 1995, ending the contact between governments. [4] Rabin had previously supervised Operation Bramble Bush, a failed 1992 plan to assassinate Saddam with Sayeret Matkal commandos. [5]
Former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said in 2004 that Iraq would not reconcile its differences with Israel. [6]
During the 2008–2009 Israel-Gaza conflict, the Iraqi government condemned the attack, stating that: "the Iraqi government demands a halt to the military operations, that civilians’ lives are not unnecessarily exposed to danger and requests that the international community honour its responsibilities and take the required measures to stop the attack". [7] The Dawa Party of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called on Islamic countries to cut relations with Israel and end all "secret and public talks" with it. [8] Also the Iraqi Shia leader Ali al-Sistani has called for decisive action by Arab and Muslim states for an end to Israeli attacks on Gaza. Though he condemned the operation, he stated that "supporting our brothers only with words is meaningless, considering the big tragedy they are facing." [9] After the 2010 Gaza flotilla raid, an Iraqi government official, MP Khairallah al-Basri (a member of current premier Nouri al-Maliki's State of Law Coalition), condemned the attack and described it as a "new humanitarian disaster" as well as "a violation of human rights and a breach of international standards and norms." [10] On July 1, 2012, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said that Iraq will establish diplomatic relations with all sovereign United Nations member states except Israel. He said that Iraq does not discriminate against any country but he rejected the idea of establishing any cultural, economic, military, or political ties with the Jewish state. [11] During the November 2012 Operation Pillar of Defense in the Gaza Strip, Iraq's envoy to the Arab League called on the Arab countries to "use the weapon of oil, with the aim of asserting real pressure on the United States and whoever stands with Israel". [12]
In 2017, the Palestinian city of Qalqilya named a street after Saddam Hussein and erected a memorial with his likeness. The monument was unveiled at a ceremony attended by the Qalqilya District Governor and two other Palestinian officials. It bears the slogan "Saddam Hussein – The Master of the Martyrs in Our Age". [13] [14] [15]
Until 2003, Palestinians in Iraq were divided into three main groups according to the date of their migration there. The first group were the refugees of 1948 and their children and grandchildren - the largest group. The second group were the refugees after the 1967 war. The last group were those who left Kuwait after the Iraqi invasion in 1990 by force. However, this presence remained limited to a few thousand compared to the size of the Palestinian presence in neighboring countries such as Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
It is worth noting that Iraq is not a party to the 1951 Convention and the Refugee Law, so the Iraqi authorities did not consider the Palestinians as refugees. However, they received assistance from the Iraqi Ministry of Defense and the Iraqi Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs. The Iraqi government provided protection to the Palestinians and provided them with a high level of treatment, according to the Casablanca Protocol of the League of Arab States in 1965. They were granted travel documents, and they had the right to work, full rights to health, education and other government services, and to own and rent homes. The Palestinians stood side by side with the Iraqis in the wars and the decline in living standards as a result of the blockade imposed on Iraq before the 2003 war.
After the US invasion of Iraq, only 7,500 refugees out of 35,000 Palestinians remained there, according to UN estimates, most of whom left their homes after organized campaigns by armed militias and US forces, to camps in the desert near the Syrian and Jordanian borders, and then to various countries including Brazil, the United States, New Zealand, Sweden, Cyprus and neighboring Arab countries, in a move condemned by international organizations and humanitarian organizations in the world, as Amnesty International condemned the violations of Palestinian refugees' rights in Iraq, while denouncing the failure of the Iraqi government and US forces to work to protect them, and it also issued an appeal to save them. In addition, the Palestine Liberation Organization office was closed immediately after the occupation, in addition to the offices of Palestinian organizations in Iraq, and the Palestinian embassy building for several months, after it was bombed with several shells, with the minimum of its representatives remaining. The dominant feature of the organization's role in Iraq towards Palestinian refugees is the lack of serious interest in the matter, despite the visit of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to Iraq (which was the first visit by a Palestinian leader to Baghdad since the Second Gulf War and the imposition of the international blockade on Iraq), and the Palestinian embassy in Baghdad providing shelter to about 300 Palestinian families in buildings belonging to it and to the Fatah movement and the Palestine Liberation Organization, which set up a camp for this purpose in the sports stadium of the Haifa Club, which in turn is affiliated with the Palestine Liberation Organization.
In contrast, the new Iraqi government expressed its support for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the borders of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and supported Palestine's request to be a member of the United Nations. Prominent Iraqi political figures also expressed their support for the unity of the Palestinian people with all its factions, and for their uprising against the Israeli occupation and its cause. A counter-current to this approach emerged among a small group of Iraqi politicians, who considered the Palestinians a fifth column defending the rule of the former regime. Some of them went so far as to demand their expulsion from Iraq.
On the popular and sports level, the Iraqi national football team played its first international matches on home soil since 2003 against its Palestinian counterpart in Erbil in 2009, an event that was an important indicator of the return of normal life to Iraq. On January 28, 2017, Safiya Al-Suhail, Iraq's ambassador to Jordan, presented her credentials to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as a non-resident ambassador of Iraq to the State of Palestine. On February 9, 2021, Haider Mansour Al-Athari presented his credentials as a non-resident ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to Palestine to the Palestinian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, Riyad Al-Maliki, in the Jordanian capital, Amman.
On July 9, 2023, the first political consultations session between the two countries was held in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. [16]
Hussein bin Talal was King of Jordan from 11 August 1952 until his death in 1999. As a member of the Hashemite dynasty, the royal family of Jordan since 1921, Hussein was a 40th-generation direct descendant of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.
Tariq Aziz was an Iraqi politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister (1979–2003), Minister of Foreign Affairs (1983–1991) and a close advisor of President Saddam Hussein. Their association began in the 1950s when both were activists for the then-banned Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. He was both an Arab nationalist and a member of the Chaldean Catholic Church.
Muhammad Zaidan aka Muhammad Abbas, sometimes known as Abu Abbas, was a founder of the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) Organization.
The Palestinian Liberation Front, also known as the Palestine Liberation Front - Abu Abbas Faction or Palestine Liberation Front, is a minor left-wing Palestinian political faction. Since 1997, the PLF has been a designated terrorist organization by the United States and by Canada since 2003. The PLF has also been banned in Japan.
The Israel–Jordan peace treaty, sometimes referred to as the Wadi Araba Treaty, is an agreement that ended the state of war that had existed between the two countries since the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and established mutual diplomatic relations. In addition to establishing peace between the two countries, the treaty also settled land and water disputes, provided for broad cooperation in tourism and trade, and obligated both countries to prevent their territory being used as a staging ground for military strikes by a third country.
The history of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict traces back to the late 19th century when Zionists sought to establish a homeland for the Jewish people in Ottoman-controlled Palestine, a region roughly corresponding to the Land of Israel in Jewish tradition. The Balfour Declaration of 1917, issued by the British government, endorsed the idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, which led to an influx of Jewish immigrants to the region. Following World War II and the Holocaust, international pressure mounted for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, leading to the creation of Israel in 1948.
Qalqilya or Qalqiliya is a Palestinian city in the West Bank which serves as the administrative center of the Qalqilya Governorate. In the 2017 census, the city had a population of 51,683. Qalqilya is surrounded by the Israeli West Bank wall, with a narrow gap in the east controlled by the Israeli military and a tunnel to the Palestinian town of Hableh. Qalqilya is under the administration of the Palestinian National Authority, while remaining under Israeli military occupation.
Black September, also known as the Jordanian Civil War, was an armed conflict between Jordan, led by King Hussein, and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), led by chairman Yasser Arafat. The main phase of the fighting took place between 16 and 27 September 1970, though certain aspects of the conflict continued until 17 July 1971.
Arab Liberation Front is a minor Palestinian political party, previously controlled by the Iraqi Ba'ath Party, which it founded in 1969 as its Palestinian military wing. It was based out of Iraq and trained by the Iraqi army. The ALF was from its foundation a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Its membership was not limited to Palestinians, as its senior leadership roles included several Lebanese and Jordanian volunteers.
The Arab–Israeli conflict began in the 20th century, evolving from earlier Intercommunal violence in Mandatory Palestine. The conflict became a major international issue with the birth of Israel in 1948. The Arab–Israeli conflict has resulted in at least five major wars and a number of minor conflicts. It has also been the source of two major Palestinian uprisings (intifadas).
The Arab–Israeli conflict is the phenomenon involving political tension, military conflicts, and other disputes between various Arab countries and Israel, which escalated during the 20th century. The roots of the Arab–Israeli conflict have been attributed to the support by Arab League member countries for the Palestinians, a fellow League member, in the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict; this in turn has been attributed to the simultaneous rise of Zionism and Arab nationalism towards the end of the 19th century, though the two national movements had not clashed until the 1920s.
Iraq–Israel relations refer to the bilateral ties between the State of Israel and the Republic of Iraq. Due to Iraq's non-recognition of Israel as a legitimate state since the latter's establishment in 1948, the two countries have not had any formal diplomatic relations. The Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq was a part of the Arab coalition that declared war on and invaded Israel shortly after its establishment, sparking the First–Arab Israeli War, and the two states have since then been in a continuous state of hostilities. Iraqi forces also participated in the Third Arab–Israeli War and the Fourth Arab–Israeli War in 1967 and 1973, respectively.
Iraqi–Lebanese relations have been close throughout history, both politically and culturally. Iraq and Lebanon have maintained diplomatic relations since 1943. Both countries have refused to recognize Israel and have recognized the State of Palestine.
Israel–Jordan relations are the diplomatic, economic and cultural relations between Israel and Jordan. The two countries share a land border, with three border crossings: Yitzhak Rabin/Wadi Araba Crossing, Jordan River Crossing and the Allenby/King Hussein Bridge Crossing, that connects the West Bank with Jordan. The relationship between the two countries is regulated by the Israel–Jordan peace treaty in 1994, which formally ended the state of war that had existed between the two countries since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, and also established diplomatic relations, besides other matters. Relations between the countries get strained from time to time, usually over tensions at the Al-Aqsa mosque. On 8 October 2020, Israel and Jordan reached an agreement to allow flights to cross over both countries’ airspace.
Israel and Yemen do not have diplomatic relations. Holders of an Israeli passport or any passport with an Israeli stamp are barred entry to Yemen and Yemen is defined as an "enemy state" under Israeli law.
Egypt–Palestine relations are the bilateral relations between the Arab Republic of Egypt and the State of Palestine. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser was a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause and he favored self-determination for the Palestinians. Although the Egyptian government has maintained a good relationship with Israel since the Camp David Accords, most Egyptians strongly resent Israel, and disapprove of the close relationship between the Israeli and Egyptian governments.
The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, also referred to as the pro-Iraqi Ba'ath movement, is a Ba'athist political party which was headquartered in Baghdad, Iraq, until 2003. It is one of two parties which emerged from the 1966 split of the original Ba'ath Party.
Kurdistan Region–Palestine relations covers the diplomatic, political, and cultural relations between the semi-autonomous Region of Kurdistan Region with the Palestinian Authority (1994–2012) and the State of Palestine.
Jordan–Palestine relations are strong, historical, bilateral relations.
Kuwait–Palestine relations refer to foreign relations between Kuwait and the State of Palestine.
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