The Israeli state and its supporters have a clear narrative. All Jews have a stake in Israel. All Jews are represented by Israel and regardless of where

they live or how they feel about Israel, Israel is the ultimate guarantee of Jewish safety.

But this week's guest argues that this isn't and has never been true. Historian and author Harvey Schleem was born in Baghdad in 1945.

His family had lived in Iraq for literally millennia,

and they considered themselves just as Arab

as their Muslim and Christian neighbors did.

The foundation of the state of Israel

changed all that, and in Schlam's view for the worse. We talk about how Israel has warped and

reduced Jewish identity, the hypocrisy of left-wing Zionists and Mossard's secret bombing campaign against Iraqi Jews.

I learned a lot from this interview and I hope you do too.

Avi Schlem thank you so much for joining us.

It's a pleasure to be here with you, Ash.

So my first question is, before 1948, in broad terms, how would you describe the experience and culture of Arab Jews living

in the Middle East? Before the emergence of the state of Israeli in 1948, there was a large number of Jews living

in the Arab world, something like 800,000 Jews.

And there were Jews in Lebanon, in Syria, in Egypt, and Iraq, where I come from, in Iraq, there were 135,000 Jews before the establishment

of the state of Israel, and then nearly all of them ended up in Israel reluctantly.

But the Jewish communities throughout the Arab world. The Jewish community in Iraq was the

most ancient going back to two and a half millennia ago. It was the most prosperous, the most successful, and

the best integrated into local society. So this was something that completely changed the face of the Middle East.

Today we have complete and stark division. There is Israel on one side and Arabs on the

other side. But before 48 there were Jews throughout the Arab world and Muslim Jewish coexistence was not a distant dream.

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