[1] On account of the role of Axis and pro-Axis elements in inciting and eventually carrying out the pogrom, it is often argued to have constituted the extension of the Shoah in Iraq, though this classification, and even its inclusion as part of the wider Holocaust, have been disputed.

After King Ghazi who inherited the throne of Faisal I, died in a 1939 car accident, Britain installed 'Abd al-Ilah as Iraq's governing regent.

Iraqi nationalist Rashid Ali al-Gaylani was appointed prime minister again in 1940, and attempted to ally with the Axis powers in order to remove the remaining British influence in the country.

In 1941 a group of pro-Nazi Iraqi officers, known as the "Golden Square" and led by General Rashid Ali, overthrew Regent Abdul Ilah on April 1 after staging a successful coup.

Iraq refused to let them land and confrontations afterward occurred both near Basra in the south and to the west of Baghdad near the British base complex and airfield.

Winston Churchill sent a telegram to US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, warning him that if the Middle East fell to Germany, victory against the Nazis would be a "hard, long and bleak proposition" given that Hitler would have access to the oil reserves there.

On 25 May Hitler issued his Order 30, stepping up German offensive operations: "The Arab Freedom Movement in the Middle East is our natural ally against England.

On 30 May the British-organized force called Kingcol led by Brigadier J.J. Kingstone reached Baghdad, causing the "Golden Square" and their supporters to escape via Iran to Germany.

[citation needed] Michael Eppel, in his book "The Palestinian Conflict in Modern Iraq", blames the Farhud on the influence of German ideology on the Iraqi people, as well as extreme nationalism, both of which were heightened by the Golden Square coup.

Shalom Darwish [he], the secretary of the Jewish community in Baghdad, testified that several days before the Farhud, the homes of Jews were marked with a red palm print ("Hamsa"), by al-Futuwa youth.

[21][20] During the fall of the Rashid Ali government, false rumors were circulated that Jews used radios to signal the Royal Air Force and distributed British propaganda.

[14] However, Zvi Yehuda, a professor of Jewish Studies, has suggested that the event that set off the rioting was anti-Jewish preaching in the Jami-Al-Gaylani mosque, and that the violence was premeditated rather than a spontaneous outburst.

[23] Mordechai Ben-Porat, who later became the leader of the Iraqi Zionists, described his experience as follows: We were mostly cut off from the center of the Jewish community and our Muslim neighbors became our friends.

A man known to be a thief protected roughly 100 Jews in his neighborhood, forcing the local baker and grocery store owner to give them food.

[25][20] The dean of Midrash Bet Zilkha, Yaakov Mutzafi, raced to open up the gates of the yeshiva to shelter the victims of the Farhud who were displaced from their homes, and secured money for their upkeep from philanthropists in the community.

[26][full citation needed] Civil order was restored after two days of violence in the afternoon of 2 June, when Prime Minister Jamil Al Midfai imposed a curfew and shot violators on sight.

[27] The British also delayed their entry into Baghdad for 48 hours, which some testimonies suggest was due to having ulterior motives in allowing a clash to happen between Muslims and Jews in the city.

There was no more aimless firing into the air; their machine guns swept the streets clear of people and quickly put a stop to looting and rioting.

In the direct aftermath of the Farhud, many joined the Iraqi Communist Party in order to protect the Jews of Baghdad, yet they did not want to leave the country and rather sought to fight for better conditions in Iraq itself.

On 23 October 1948, Shafiq Ades, a respected Jewish businessman, was publicly hanged in Basra on charges of selling weapons to Israel and the Iraqi Communist Party, despite the fact he was an outspoken anti-Zionist.