Full Text of HJR0068 98th General Assembly
HJ0068 98TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY |
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| 1 | | HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION
| 2 | | WHEREAS, During Operation Iraqi Freedom, Pentagon | 3 | | officials discovered a trove of thousands of centuries-old | 4 | | artifacts from Iraq's Jewish community in the basement of | 5 | | Saddam Hussein's intelligence service headquarters; and
| 6 | | WHEREAS, These artifacts were improperly seized by force | 7 | | from their rightful owners by the regime of Saddam Hussein, | 8 | | which then stored them in a flooded basement, most likely in an | 9 | | effort to marginalize the culture and history of Mesopotamian | 10 | | Jews; and
| 11 | | WHEREAS, The artifacts were brought to the United States in | 12 | | 2003, where they were carefully cleaned, preserved, | 13 | | photographed, and displayed at the National Archives; and
| 14 | | WHEREAS, The United States Department of State has | 15 | | announced its plans to return the collection to the government | 16 | | of Iraq in the summer of 2014, claiming the Iraqi people are | 17 | | the rightful owners; and
| 18 | | WHEREAS, More than 40 American Jewish groups have expressed | 19 | | their deep misgivings about returning the artifacts to Iraq, | 20 | | citing "uncertain conditions" in Iraq and calling for the | 21 | | artifacts to be given to the synagogues of Iraqi Jews around |
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| 1 | | the world; and | 2 | | WHEREAS, The Pentagon official who discovered the | 3 | | collection, Harold Rhode, has likened the prospective return of | 4 | | the artifacts to "giving the personal effects of Jews killed in | 5 | | the Holocaust back to Germany"; and
| 6 | | WHEREAS, Religious documents and artifacts such as these | 7 | | are sacred and should properly be returned to the Jewish | 8 | | community from which they were stolen, rather than used to | 9 | | obscure Iraq's history of hostility to the Jewish people; | 10 | | therefore, be it
| 11 | | RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE | 12 | | NINETY-EIGHTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, THE | 13 | | SENATE CONCURRING HEREIN, that we urge the United States | 14 | | Department of State to rescind its poorly reasoned and | 15 | | inappropriate decision to transfer these artifacts back to the | 16 | | Iraqi government; and be it further
| 17 | | RESOLVED, That we urge the United States Department of | 18 | | State to return the artifacts to their rightful owners in the | 19 | | Jewish community; and be it further | 20 | | RESOLVED, That suitable copies of this resolution be | 21 | | delivered to the President of the United States, the Secretary |
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| 1 | | of State of the United States, and the members of the Illinois | 2 | | congressional delegation.
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