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Meet the Canadian fighting France for $30 million in unpaid embassy rent in Iraq

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JL;DR SUMMARY Philip Khazzam is fighting for the restitution of his family's mansion in Baghdad, Iraq, which was illegally rented out to the French government for decades without compensation. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski.

  • At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself.
  • This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude.
  • Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from.
  • But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
  • And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.
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Tags

Human RightsRestitutionIraqMizrahi JewsSephardi JewsBaghdadFrench EmbassySaddam HusseinJewish PropertyPhilip Khazzam

Places mentioned

Montreal, Quebec, Canada
"Their Baghdad house was eventually rented to the French government as an embassy. But after Hussein's party took power in 1968, the rent checks stopped coming. Instead, the Iraqi regime took the money and it still collects the rent to this day, even though Philip Kazam's family says his family is still registered as the rightful owners. So he's suing France for over $30 million in unpaid rent and damages."
France
"That's the sound from a 2007 documentary about the Embassy of France building in Baghdad, Iraq, a high-ranking, French minister was paying a visit at the time on a crucial diplomatic mission not long after the U.S.-led war on Iraq toppled dictator Saddam Hussein on the pretext that Iraq was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction and supporting al-Qaeda."
Baghdad, Iraq
"Their Baghdad house was eventually rented to the French government as an embassy. But after Hussein's party took power in 1968, the rent checks stopped coming. Instead, the Iraqi regime took the money and it still collects the rent to this day, even though Philip Kazam's family says his family is still registered as the rightful owners. So he's suing France for over $30 million in unpaid rent and damages."
New York, United States
"So my grandfather and his brother and the kids moved to New York, actually, for a couple of years, hoping to get their papers for New York. Eventually, they gave up. They were waiting too long. And they decided to come to Montreal."
This podcast episode was indexed and curated by Cairo, JL;DR's web crawler.
Cairo Item ID 56369
Cairo Source ID 72
Retrieved 2025-07-08 05:30:58 UTC
Curated 2025-07-08 06:02:09 UTC