BAGHDAD, IRAQ – JULY 31: An Iraqi man burns Israeli and American flags as Iraqi women take part in a protest against Israel’s attacks on civilians in Lebanon on July 31, 2006 in the Sadr Shiite city in Baghdad, Iraq. In the deadliest Israeli attack since hostilities began, more than 50 people were killed in Qana yesterday, many of them children, when the house they were sheltering in was bombed by Israeli war planes. (Photo by Wathiq Khuzaie/Getty Images)

Why did 300 Iraqis call for peace with Israel?

October 5, 2021

We’re curious...

“We demand that Iraq join the Abraham Accords… We call for full diplomatic relations with Israel. We are an assembly of Sunnis and Shiites… We commit ourselves to an awakening of peace.”

Those were the words — or were apparently the words — of Iraqi tribal leader Wisam Al-Hardan in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published last month. The day the op-ed appeared, Al-Hardan reportedly delivered the same message at a conference held in the Kurdish capital of Erbil in which 300 Iraqis publicly called for the normalizat...