[tgs]

http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/cont...a-and-the-jews

The Italian conquest of Libya in 1911 initially brought the Libyan Jews equal rights, but those rights were eroded by Italy's subsequent alliance with Germany and the imposition of the Racial Laws of 1938. During World War II, control of North Africa shifted back and forth between Italy and Britain. With every British reverse, the Jews' situation deteriorated. Thousands were deported to brutal labor and internment camps in the desert.

The British liberated the country in late 1942, but the result was a new phase of persecution that led to the Jewish community's demise. In 1945, Muslim pogroms killed hundreds of Jews and destroyed their homes, shops, and synagogues; British occupation forces stood by. On the verge of Libyan independence in 1951, Prime Minister Mahmud Muntasser was frank: He could see "no future" for Jews in Libya. Between 1949 and 1951, some 30,000 Libyan Jews left their ancient home for Israel.

With the rise of Arab nationalism and the permanent state of war against Israel, the remaining 8,000 Libyan Jews and were systematically stripped of their rights as Libyan citizens. They were barred from having passports, visiting Israel, and serving in public office. Jewish schools and communal organizations were closed. Jews were banned from obtaining the nationality certificates required for engagement in commerce, and in 1961 the government sequestered the property of Jews who emigrated to Israel. After the Six-Day war, a series of pogroms culminated in the outright expulsion of Libya's remaining Jews.

As it was across the Arab and Muslim world, for Jews, Libya's first "Arab Spring" as an independent state was a sad and familiar story. Initially, the sudden ascent of Muammar Qaddafi seemed familiar as well. The official story is that Qaddafi, a member of a small, Arabized Berber tribe, was raised in a tent. As with many lower-class tribesmen, he found his path to power in the military. And, as with other tribesmen like Saddam Hussein and Hafez al-Assad, who seized power across the Middle East in the age of Arab nationalism, he found Jews and Israel to be a useful obsession.