Iraqi Jews and Israeli Intelligence

Iraqi Jews were convinced that

Israel had a hand in uprooting them.

After the 1948 war, there was

mounting popular hostility towards the Jews in

Iraq. Five bombs exploded in Jewish sites.

The series of bombs created a panic which led more

and more Jews to register to leave the country.

I met an elderly friend of my mother's,

uh, an Iraqi Jew called Yaakov Kakukli,

who had been in the Zionist underground.

One member of his group, Yosef Basri, a very, very

intelligent, uh, Jewish lawyer, and his assistant,

Shalom Saleh Shalom, were responsible for

three out of the five bombs. Basri's

controller was an Israeli intelligence

officer named Max Bennett, who was based

in Tehran