In September 1948, a prosperous Jewish businessman in Iraq was publicly hanged in front of a cheering crowd of 12,000. The following day, close-up images of Shafiq Ades’s broken body ran on the front page of Iraqi newspapers in a triumphant and gruesome spectacle that celebrated the punishment of a “Zionist traitor.” Iraq was losing the war that would create the state of Israel, a humiliation that challenged fantasies of Arab unity and conquest. A military tribunal accused Ades of selling arms to Israel, and he was convicted within days. The state determined that the execution would take place outside...
Monitoring Antisemitism Intel
