Zionist leaders supported revoking Iraqi Jews’ citizenship to force emigration

Evidence

Jews in the Arab world became a Zionist target for immigration only after the Holocaust and the establishment of the state of Israel. They were regarded as the human reservoir that would ensure a Jewish majority in Palestine. Their mass migration was rationalized in almost purely demographic terms. Accordingly, after the establishment of the state of Israel and the immigration of Jews from Europe, most of whom were survivors, attention was shifted to the Jewish communities in Arab lands. The rise of the category of Mizrahim, and its transformation into a social reality and identity, grew out of this process. Zionists have not hesitated to assist the process of exclusion, such as in Iraq, where Zionist leaders supported the legislation that revoked the citizenship of Jews, in order to force them to emigrate. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 655

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes of the general ‘law merchant’ theme of institutions enabling demographic engineering, and connects to broader scholarship on the 1950-51 Iraqi Jewish exodus.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: the specifics of Zionist complicity in the Iraqi citizenship revocation — which leaders, what legislation, and what motivated them.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 655