Prepared by the Palestinian Forum for Dialogue
http://www.palestinianforum.net
قبل 58 عاما حارب العراقيون من اجل فلسطين. و سقط منهم العديد على تراب الوطن. عرفناهم كعراقيين و لم نعرفهم كسنة و شيعة و تركمان و كرد و مسيحيين كما فعلت قوى الاجرام الامريكية. فمن اجل هذه العينة من شهداء العراق ، و من اجل العراقيين الابطال الذين اوقفوا الزحف الصهيوني نحو دمشق اثناء حرب 1973 : فلنصل من اجل توحيد هذا الشعب الذي وقع ضحية دكتاتور احمق سفاح و ضحية الهمجية الاستعمارية. فلندعو الله ان يهدي قادة هذا الشعب لما فيه خير لامتنا و لحقن الجرح العراقي النازف منذ ربع قرن. دماء هؤلاء الجنود الابطال الذين رفضوا اوامر قادتهم و استبسلوا في مقاومة العدو تدعونا ان نتوحد و ان نكف عن نشر البغضاء بين ابناء شعوبنا.
لا نملك لكم ايها العراقيون الا الدعاء
كوكبة من شهداء العراق عام 1948 - المصدر: مركز المعلومات الوطني الفلسطيني:0
Commentary by Wafaa
This list of Iraqi martyrs was emailed to me by an Iraqi friend. It came so timely after an Iraqi known man in an email correspondence with me praised Egyptians' inclination for peace and acknowledged their suffering and their lost lives for the Palestinian cause and then concluded his remark by questioning "How many Iraqis died for Palestine?" in his effort to undermine and discredit Iraqis' outstanding work for Arab causes through the decades! Although I replied to him correcting his misjudgment and misunderstanding of the matter, I did not have with me the core evidence to back up my point. The link above includes a long list of the names of Iraqi martyrs.
In fact, if it weren't for the Iraqi army's involvement in the 1973 war, Damascus would have been under Israeli occupation.
Simultaneously, we should give CREDITS to the Palestinians for wonderfully documenting this list. Sadly, we, Iraqis, did not document the Arab martyrs (from Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Morocco, Sudan, Algeria and Libya) who lost their lives for our Iraqi cause. Right before the 2003 war and during its first month, there has been an estimate of 7000 to 9000 Arab fighters who entered IRAQ to fight alongside IRAQIS, but what did we do for them? Many Iraqis went even as far as discrediting the number and considering it one of Saddam Hussein's and the Baath's propaganda. Few reports were coming from western media about these Arab fighters being kicked in the head by the Kurdish peshmergeh legs and other non-Kurdish militias even when they were dead. Thousands of them were murdered, yet were unknown and without any respect for their corps, this is aside from the fact that their parents never knew their fate! I acknowledge that the Arabs' stance has been passive, and sometimes shameful, since 2003.
There is a memorial in Janeen, Palestine of the 200 Iraqi soldiers/officers who were killed in their fight against the European Jews near Janeen, with "Iraqi Martyrs of 1948 War" written on it. It was heart warming to learn about its existence. We, Iraqis, should have done the same for those who were killed for our, Iraqi, cause!
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Dear Wafaa
I don't know if the list of Iraqi martyrs in Palestine includes the ones who joined the Qawouqchi as volunteers even before the declaration of the war in 1948. I was an 8-year-old child when I joined the people gathering in a street in Al-Adhamiyah behind the Al-Adhamiyah Secondary School to celebrate the departure of one member of the Al-Sabti family to join the Salvation Army in Palestine. My cousin Omar Al-Bayaty from Kifri was a volunteer in the Salvation Army as wireless specialist soldier.
Albayaty Abdul Ilah
Tuesday, May 16, 06
