Bahrain’s Jewish MP: Protests Blown Out of Proportion
Bahraini Jewish parliamentarian Nancy Khedouri told JTA that the protests in her country have been blown out of proportion by the media.
At least eight people have been killed and hundreds wounded in mass anti-government demonstrations in Bahrain, an oil-exporting island nation home to about 800,000 people, including some three dozen Jews.
Khedouri and others from Bahrain said the country’s Jews have refrained from joining the protests and support King Hamad ibn Isa Khalifa, a Sunni ruler who has been the subject of protests by the Bahraini Shiites who comprise some 70 percent of the population.
“We are all numbed, saddened and shocked by what has happened,” Khedouri said in a telephone interview from the capital, Manama. “Yes, it’s very upsetting, but we all have faith that this is just a temporary cloud that will float away.”
Jewish Bahraini Rouben D. Rouben, manager of an electronics and appliance shop in downtown Manama, said life already is back to normal.
“I’m sitting in my shop enjoying myself,” he said. “Nobody in our community was affected. Nobody has left.”
Bahrain is the only country in the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council, which also includes Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, that has ever had a real Jewish community.
Khedouri, a prominent Jew of Iraqi origin, recently was named to Bahrain’s 40-member upper parliament known as the Shura Council. She is one of two Jewish Bahrainis in the country’s government.
The other is Houda Nonoo, Bahrain’s envoy to the United States and the first Jewish ambassador ever to represent any Arab country. Nonoo did not respond to requests for comment on the situation in Bahrain.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news. All donations are still being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000 until April 24.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
