There have been three delegations of local leaders from Iraq in Israel during recent months, Chadashot News reported on Sunday night.

The members of these delegations, who were not identified in the report, and they visited sites including Yad Vashem, as well as meeting with government officials, with the latter remaining anonymous as well.

Nonetheless, amid the realization that Iraq maintains an official ‘state of war’ with Israel, the visits are groundbreaking and perhaps will open future doors towards establishing ties of some nature. One is reminded that in 1981, Israel bombed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear facility in what was called Operation Opera or Operation Babylon.

The delegations were billed “social” and “cultural”, and by no means official political delegations, but this does not diminish their significance, as the 15 members of the delegations participated in what may be looked at one day as setting an infrastructure into place for ties with Israel, however limited those ties will be.

Perhaps the visits are the result of the Facebook page that was launched last year by the Israel Foreign Ministry, a page designed to serve as a “digital embassy” as the Foreign Ministry officials explained it, an Arabic language page tailored to reach out to the Iraqi people. Despite the pessimism, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who serves a Foreign Minister as well, remains adamant in his ongoing efforts to establish ties with Arab nations, including Iraq, and he has announced the Iraqi people are interested in establishing ties with Israel.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)