‘Protocols’ Past And Future

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The New York Sun

It is now 100 years since the emergence of the infamous forgery, “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion,” the document which generated massive anti-Semitism all over the world.


The story of the Protocols is well known. Developed by the Tsar’s secret police in 1905, it claimed to be the real discussions of the Jewish leaders’ conspiracy to rule the world. It is a classic in paranoid, racist literature. Taken by the gullible as the confidential minutes of a Jewish conclave convened in the last years of the 19th century, it has been heralded by anti-Semites as proof that Jews are plotting to take over the world.


The document had a life of its own after World War I. It spread through Russia during the turmoil of the Communist revolution and its aftermath, playing a role in the murder of tens of thousands of Jews. It was picked up by auto magnate Henry Ford in the United States. “The Dearborn Independent,” owned by Ford, published an American version of the Protocols between May and September of 1920 in a series called “The International Jew: the World’s Foremost Problem.” The articles were later republished in book form with half a million copies in circulation. This helped to spread pernicious anti-Semitism in this country in the 1920s.


Adolf Hitler cited the document as proof that his anti-Jewish campaign was not only justified, but necessary to protect Germans from the Jewish menace. And since the founding of Israel, Arab countries have routinely used the Protocols to spur anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hatred.


As we remember how damaging this forgery has been for 100 years, the question we face is whether or not it will continue to have such a devastating impact in the future.


Unfortunately, the signs of recent events bode ill. Whether it is the document itself or the underlying concept of the document – that Jews have undue power in the world and conspire as Jews to serve Jewish interests and to harm others – there are a host of indicators that this insidious idea has a future.


The list of examples is long. On October 16, 2003, speaking to a meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Malaysia, then-Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad told the assembly of 57 nations that Islam must combat the Jews who today, “rule this world by proxy.”


Slews of articles and books have appeared since September 11 telling of the great Jewish conspiracy that underlies the attack on the World Trade Center. Holocaust deniers in the Arab world and elsewhere attribute the acceptance by the world of the “myth” of the Holocaust to Jewish control of the international media. Even in America this idea is alive, as when some critics of the war in Iraq blamed it on Jewish neo-conservatives, thereby absorbing central themes of “The Protocols” – of mysterious, excessive Jewish power and of Jews working against the interests of their country to serve Jewish interests.


And it is notable that both left-wing and right-wing conspiratorialists are using the theme of Jewish power and control to explain a complicated world.


Most directly, two major Arab productions for television – one a 41-part series that appeared on Egyptian state television in 2002, the other a 21-part Syrian production that aired in 2003 on the Lebanon-based satellite network Al-Manar – created dramatic presentations for mass audiences based on the idea that the Protocols are indeed the secret plan of the Jews to dominate the world.


It is not merely these manifestations, however, that produce concern but the underlying motivation of those accusations. It has often been said that anti-Semitism has little to do with the Jews but is rather a need of societies in conflict and turmoil to find convenient scapegoats for problems. The Jews as scapegoats goes back at least to the Middle Ages with charges of blood rituals and poisoning the wells.


“The Protocols” conspiracy gave it a modern political slant that transformed vague notions into organized theory. And, of course, in the world we live in, where terrorism, extremism and hatred are rampant and operating in many societies around the world, where globalism brings uncertain change, the opportunities for such scapegoating increase drastically. The most recent manifestation of this came after the suicide blasts at three hotels in Jordan carried out by an Iraq-based arm of Al Qaeda, when some in the Arab world immediately blamed the attacks on Jews and Israel.


When Mahathir Mohamad blamed international Jewish currency dealers for the recession in Malaysia, he was giving his people a simple explanation to a complex problem. When Jewish conspirators were blamed for September 11, it was a way to avoid the internal challenges of Islamic extremism in the Middle East. When Jewish neo-cons were held responsible for “pushing” the war in Iraq, it served as an explanation as to why America was so intent on toppling Saddam Hussein a time when many people were questioning the rationale for war. In other words, when the moment is ripe, demagogues the world over can seize on the Protocols, or the concept behind it, to explain all problems.


Like most problems of the kind, combating this disease requires leadership, education and political will. If political, religious and educational leaders work together in exposing the lie of the Protocols and its inherent dangers, then we have the beginning of counteraction. Ultimately, societies must realize that there is no substitute for facing up to real problems, no matter how complex. Blaming the Jews will not solve any problems. Indeed, it will make thing worse. Facing up to challenges without the historic scapegoat of the Jew is to make progress toward a better world.



Mr. Foxman is national director of the Anti-Defamation League and author of “Never Again? The Threat of the New Anti-Semitism.” A history of the “Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion” is available on the League’s Web site at www.adl.org.


The New York Sun

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