- 著者
-
臼杵 陽
- 出版者
- 一般財団法人 日本国際政治学会
- 雑誌
- 国際政治 (ISSN:04542215)
- 巻号頁・発行日
- vol.1994, no.105, pp.30-44,L7, 1994
The aim of this article is to explain the time-lag between two Jewish mass emigrations from Iraq and Egypt in the domestic and regional contexts of the Arab-Israeli Conflict in the 1950s.<br>The Jewish mass emigration from Iraq, on the one hand, suddenly began in consequence of the enactment in 1950 of the law depriving any Iraqi Jew who, of his own freen will and choice, desires to leave Iraq for good of his nationality. On the other hand, the majority of Jews of Egypt, who remained after the Palestine War of 1948, emigrated from Egypt after the Suez War of 1956.<br>Both Iraq and Egypt dispatched their armies to Palestine after British retreat from the mandate, while Israel declared the new Jewish state of Palestine in May, 1948.<br>Iraq and Egypt reacted differently to the repercussion of the 1948 War. Iraq suffered from serious economic difficulties after World War Two, which led to domestic political unrest. The Palestine War provided the Iraqi government with good opportunities to turn the general public's eyes to the Palestine question. After the War, Nûrî al-Sa'îd, the most influential politician in Iraq and advocator of the federation of the ‘Fertile Crescent’, utilized the Palestine cause in order to maintain his legitimacy in unstable domestic politics. Nûrî's parochial policy toward Palestine made it more difficult for Iraqi Jews to live in peace. Finally, about twelve hundred thousand Iraqi Jews were forced to emigrate from Iraq to Israel in 1950 and 1951. The oldest Jewish community in the world disappeared.<br>In contrast to Iraq, Egypt did not implement any special policy against Jews of Egypt after the 1948 War. Two-thirds of Jewish population in Egypt did not hold Egyptian nationality. They immigrated to Egypt after the British occupation in 1882. They continued to be foreigners until the nationalization of foreign companies in Egypt after the Suez War. No Egyptian government followed discriminatory policies to the Jews even after the Free Officers' Revolution in 1952. On the contrary, the Officers pursued peace with Israel through secret negotiations after the Armistice Agreements according to recently published researches, which are based upon newly available British, American and Israeli official documents, on Egyptian-Israeli relations.<br>The American policy of the Eisenhower administration influenced both Arab regional politics and secret peace negotiations between Arab states and Israel. The U. S. administration tried to attain a resolution between Egypt and Israel so as to secure a regional cooperation of the Arab states in the south of the ‘Northern Tier’ upon a concept of the containment of Communism.<br>Nûrî, the Iraqi premier, pursued his old concept of the federation of the‘ Fertile Crescent’ in the framework of the Baghdad Pact under British patronage. British also intended to maintain Imperial hegemony over Middle East through the Baghdad Pact, while Americans considered the Pact as a grand strategy against Communism. This contradiction produced American-British inconsistency in terms of their interests in the area. This situation reflected upon Egyptian-Iraqi confrontatins concerning participation in the Pact and also upon peace negotiations between Egypt and Israel.<br>Israel felt isolated in the above-mentioned regional circumstances. Israel expected the U. S. administration would agree with the supply of armaments. But U.S. were reluctant to supply their arms against Arab interests in their area strategy. Israel, therefore, sought other sources and turned her endeavors to reach an agreement with France.<br>Egypt also sought her arms from the Eastern Bloc, which led U. S. change their Arab policy of supporting Egypt, and finally to the outbreak of the Suez War. After the war, ‘Abd al-Nâsir declared that enemies’ companies would be nationalized. He also deported British and French nationals includin