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Contents
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Title
The text is alternatively known in English as:
- Protocols of the wise men of Zion
- Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion
- Protocols of the meetings of the learned elders of Zion
- Protocols of the Meetings of the Zionist Men of Wisdom
- The Illuminati Protocols
- Protocols of the Sages of Zion
- Protocols of Zion
- The Jewish Peril
- The Protocols and World Revolution
- Praemonitus Praemunitus
- The War Against the Kingship of Christ.
The variation in title derives partly from the fact that the book has two titles in Russian - "Сионские протоколы" (Sionskiye protokoly, lit. "Protocols of Zion") and "Протоколы сионских мудрецов" (Protokoly sionskih mudretsov, lit. "Protocols of the Sages of Zion") - and partly due to the different translations of the Russian word мудрец (mudrets, a wise man or a sage).
The variation in title also derives from the fact that various (often anonymous) compilers or editors give it a different main title (as distinct from a subtitle), as well as the interest of these to advertise or suit their particular antisemitic agenda, and the fact that the text, which consists roughly of no more than 2 or 3 dozen paragraphs is only sufficient for a pamphlet, and it becomes a book by expansion with prefaces, introductions, addenda, etc.
For example, the first American English language edition, published in Boston in 1920 by Small, Maynard & Company, has the following full title: The Protocols and World Revolution Including a Translation and Analysis of the "Protocols of the Meetings of the Zionist Men of Wisdom". Only pages 11 through 73 contain the so-called Protocols. The word "Zion" in this edition has not been used; rather, the word "Zionist" is used. This contrasts to a similar practice of the prior Russian editions. For example, in 1905 Sergei Nilus's book on the imminent arrival of the anti-Christ The Big within the Small, the Protocols constituted the final twelfth chapter.
Origins and content
Maurice Joly
Elements of the text in the Protocols were plagiarizations from the 1864 book, Dialogue aux enfers entre Machiavel et Montesquieu (Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu), written by the French satirist Maurice Joly. Joly's work attacks the political ambitions of Napoleon III using Machiavelli as a diabolical plotter in Hell as a stand-in for Napoleon's views. Joly himself appears to have borrowed material from a popular novel by Eugène Sue, The Mysteries of the People, in which the plotters were Jesuits. Jews do not appear in either work. Since it was illegal to criticize the monarchy, Joly had the pamphlet printed in Belgium, then tried to smuggle it back into France. The police confiscated as many copies as they could, and it was banned. After it was traced to Joly, he was tried on April 25, 1865, and sentenced to 15 months in prison at Sainte-Pelagie. Joly committed suicide in 1878.
Hermann Goedsche
Hermann Goedsche's 1868 novel, Biarritz (in English as To Sedan) contributed another idea that may have inspired the scribe behind the Protocols. In the chapter, “The Jewish Cemetery in Prague and the Council of Representatives of the Twelve Tribes of Israel”, Goedsche wrote about a nocturnal meeting between members of a mysterious rabbinical cabal, describing how at midnight, the Devil appears before those who have gathered on behalf of the Twelve Tribes of Israel to plan a “Jewish conspiracy”. His depiction is also similar to the scene in Alexandre Dumas, père's Joseph Balsamo, where Cagliostro and company plot the affair of the diamond necklace. With Biarritz appearing at about the same time as The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu, it is possible that Goedsche was inspired by the ideas in Joly's pamphlet, especially in detailing the outcome of the cabal's secret meeting.[7]
Goedsche, a reactionary to the revolutions of 1848, lost his job in the Prussian postal service after forging evidence to implicate democratic leader Benedict Waldeck of conspiring against the king. Following his dismissal, Goedsche began a career as a conservative columnist, while also producing literary work under the pen name Sir John Retcliffe.[8] Goedsche was allegedly a spy for the Prussian Secret Police.[9]
In 1871, the story was being presented in France as serious history. In 1872, “The Jewish Cemetery in Prague”, translated into Russian, appeared in St. Petersburg as a separate pamphlet of purported non-fiction. François Bournand, in his Les Juifs et nos contemporains (1896), reproduced a speech from the chapter as that of a Chief Rabbi “John Readcliff” [sic].
Structure and themes
The 24 Protocols are posited as instructions to a new Elder, outlining how the group will control the world. The Elders want to trick all "gentile nations", whom they call "goyim", into doing their will. Their preferred methods include:
| Protocol | Theme |
|---|---|
| 1 | Alcoholism, Annihilation of the privileges of the non-Jewish aristocracy, among other topics. |
| 2, 9, 12 | The propagation of ideas, such as Darwinism, Marxism, Nietzsche-ism, Liberalism, Socialism, Communism, Anarchism, and Utopianism, with the task of undermining established forms of order. |
| 4 | Materialism |
| 5 | World government |
| 7 | World wars |
| 10 | Staging catastrophes against one's own people, then claiming a moral high ground for leverage (False flag) |
| 11 | Universal suffrage |
| 11, 12, 17 | Curtailment of civil liberties with the excuse of defeating the enemies of peace |
| 13 | Creating the impression of the existence of freedom of press, freedom of speech, human rights and democracy, all of which are subsequently undermined and become mere illusions or deceptive smokescreens behind which actual oppression lies |
| 14 | Distractions |
| 14, 17 | Pornographic literature |
| 16 | The destruction of Christianity, Islam and other religions and cultures, followed by a transitional stage of atheism, followed finally by the hegemony of Judaism |
| 20 | Brainwashing |
| 21 | Economic depressions |
| 22 | Undermining financial systems by foreign loans, creating national bankruptcy, destroying money markets and replacing them with government credit institutions |
| 23 | Justification of previous acts of evil and expectation of a great new society |
| 24 | Reduction of the manufacture of articles of luxury, destruction of large manufacturers, prohibition of alcohol and hashish, unleashing forces of violence under the mask of principles of freedom, only to have the 'King of the Jews' demolish those very forces to make him appear a saviour |
| 25 | Training of the king, direct heirs, irreproachability of exterior morality of the King of the Jews |
Control of the media and finance would replace the traditional sources of social order with one based on mass manipulation and state engineered propaganda, where powerful elites and institutions conspire to conceal unpalatable truths from the masses. In these respects, the Protocols draws on long-standing criticisms of modernity, radicalism and capitalism, but presents them as part of an orchestrated plot, rather than as a product of impersonal historical processes.
The text assumes that the reader already believes that the Freemasons are a secret society with a hidden political agenda, and the Protocols purports to demonstrate that this hidden agenda is itself controlled or guided by the 'Elders', a sort of conspiracy theory within a conspiracy theory. In the Protocols, Freemasons and "liberal thinkers" are shown to be mere tools that the Elders will eventually replace with a Jewish theocracy. The Protocols describes a forthcoming "kingdom" and goes into great lengths about how it will be run. Yet even in this kingdom the Elders will avoid direct political control, preferring to assert themselves via usury and manipulation of money. Even the "King of the Jews" himself will be nothing more than a figurehead.
Comparison to the Dialogues
The Protocols 1–19 closely follow the order of The Dialogues in Hell 1–17, with a few exceptions. In some places, plagiarism is incontrovertible:
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Another example is the reference to the Hindu deity Vishnu, which appears exactly twice in both the Dialogues in Hell and the Protocols:
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In addition to mentioning Vishnu, improbable in the Jewish religious literature, and the lack of Talmudic citations that would be expected in it, textual references to the "King of the Jews", the semi-messianic idea that carries strong connotations of Jesus, further suggest the author was not well-versed in Jewish culture, as this term has been avoided in the Judaic tradition since the schism between Judaism and Christianity.[10]
Once Philip Graves' Times article showed the extent of the similarity between the two texts, it became clear that the Protocols was not an authentic document.
Conspiracy references
The idea that the Freemasons formed part of an anti-Christian conspiracy, either separate from or in association with Jews, long predated the spreading of The Protocols. In the late 18th-early 19th centuries, Freemasonry was popular (as were many fraternal organizations), and its most significant opponent, the Roman Catholic Church, opposed its open support for freedom of religion and enlightenment ideals.
After some interaction with masons, a Scottish natural philosopher John Robison became an enthusiastic conspiracy theorist and expanded on his impressions in his 1797 pamphlet Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe, carried on in the secret meetings of Freemasons, Illuminati and Reading Societies. He did not take into account that French masons were members of several mutually hostile factions and that many of them were executed by their rivals. Robison's work does not mention Jews.
Jesuit priest Augustin Barruél had some contact with Robison, but extended the notion to include Jewscitation needed. He had accused the Jews of founding the Bavarian Illuminaticitation needed.
According to Daniel Pipes,
"The great importance of the Protocols lies in its permitting antisemites to reach beyond their traditional circles and find a large international audience, a process that continues to this day. The forgery poisoned public life wherever it appeared; it was "self-generating; a blueprint that migrated from one conspiracy to another."[11] The book's vagueness — almost no names, dates, or issues are specified — has been one key to this wide-ranging success. The purportedly Jewish authorship also helps to make the book more convincing. Its embrace of contradiction — that to advance, Jews use all tools available, including capitalism and communism, philo-Semitism and antisemitism, democracy and tyranny — made it possible for the Protocols to reach out to all: rich and poor, Right and Left, Christian and Muslim, American and Japanese."[12]
Pipes notes that the Protocols emphasizes recurring themes of conspiratorial antisemitism: "Jews always scheme", "Jews are everywhere", "Jews are behind every institution", "Jews obey a central authority, the shadowy 'Elders'", and "Jews are close to success."[13]
The Protocols is widely considered influential in the development of other conspiracy theories, and reappears repeatedly in contemporary conspiracy literature, such as Jim Marrs' Rule by Secrecy. Some recent editions proclaim that the "Jews" depicted in the Protocols are a cover identity for other conspirators such as the Illuminati,[14] Freemasons, the Priory of Sion, or even, in the opinion of David Icke, "extra-dimensional entities." Other groups that believe in the authenticity of the Protocols have claimed that the book does not depict the way that Jews think and act, but only those belonging to an alleged secret elite group of Zionists, and that the "Elders" were not Rabbis, but secular Zionist leaders. Many conspiracy theorists believe the "Jewish conspiracy" to be disinformation.
Historical publications, usage, and investigations
Emergence in Russia
The chapter "In the Jewish Cemetery in Prague" from Goedsche's Biarritz, with its strong antisemitic theme containing the alleged rabbinical plot against the European civilization, was translated into Russian as a separate pamphlet in 1872.[15]
In 1921 Princess Catherine Radziwill gave a private lecture in New York. She claimed that the Protocols were a forgery compiled in 1904-1905 by Russian journalists Matvei Golovinski and Manasevich-Manuilov at the direction of Pyotr Rachkovsky, Chief of the Russian secret service in Paris.[16] Golovinski worked together with Charles Joly (son of Maurice Joly) at Le Figaro in Paris. This account, however, contradicts basic chronology of Protocols publication, as they were already published in 1903 in the newspaper Znamya. Catherine Radziwill was previously convicted of forging Cecil Rhodes' signature on a promissory note. She also authored numerous gossip and propaganda books. In 1935 Radziwill repeated her statement as a witness at the Berne Trial.
In 1944 German writer Konrad Heiden identified Golovinski as an author of the Protocols.[14]
Radziwill's account was supported by Russian historian Mikhail Lepekhine, who published his findings in November 1999 in the French newsweekly L'Express.[17] Lepekhine considers the Protocols a part of a scheme to persuade Tsar Nicholas II that the modernization of Russia was really a Jewish plot to control the world.
Ukrainian scholar Vadim Skuratovsky offers extensive literary, historical and linguistic analysis of the original text of the Protocols and traces the influences of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's prose (in particular, The Grand Inquisitor and The Possessed) on Golovinski's writings, including the Protocols.[18]
In his book The Non-Existent Manuscript, Italian scholar Cesare G. De Michelis studies early Russian publications of the Protocols.
The Protocols were first mentioned in the Russian press in April 1902, by the Saint Petersburg newspaper, Novoye Vremya (Новое Время - The New Times). The article was written by a famous conservative publicist Mikhail Menshikov as a part of his regular series "Letters to Neighbors" ("Письма к ближним") and was entitled "Plots against Humanity." The author described his meeting with a lady (Yuliana Glinka, as it is known now) who, after telling him about her mystical revelations, implored him to get familiar with the documents later known as the Protocols; but after reading some excerpts Menshikov became quite skeptical about their origin and did not publish them.[19]
First printing and Nilus editions
The Protocols are claimed to have been published at the earliest, in serialized form, from August 28 to September 7 (O.S.) 1903, in Znamya (Знамя - The Banner), a Saint Petersburg daily newspaper, under Pavel Krushevan. Krushevan had initiated the Kishinev pogrom four months earlier.[20]
The Protocols enjoyed another wave of popularity in Russia after 1905, when progressive political elements in Russia succeeded in creating a constitution and a parliament, the Duma. The reactionary Union of the Russian People, known as the Black Hundreds, together with the Okhrana, the Tsarist secret police, blamed this liberalization on the "International Jewish conspiracy," and began a program of disseminating the Protocolscitation needed as propaganda to support the wave of pogroms that swept Russia in 1903–1906 and as a tool to deflect attention from social activism. It also was of interest to Tsar Nicholas II, who was fearful of modernization and protective of his monarchy, and he presented the growing revolutionary movement as part of a powerful world conspiracy and blamed the Jews for Russia's problemscitation needed.
In 1905, self-proclaimed mystic Sergei Nilus gained fame by publishing the full text of the Protocols in Chapter XII, the final chapter (pages 305–417), of the second edition (or third, according to some sources) of his book, Velikoe v malom i antikhrist, which translates as "The Great within the Small: The Coming of the Anti-Christ and the Rule of Satan on Earth". He claimed it was the work of the First Zionist Congress, held in 1897 in Basel, Switzerland. When it was pointed out that the First Zionist Congress had been open to the public and was attended by many non-Jews, Nilus changed his story, saying the Protocols were the work of the 1902–1903 meetings of the Elders, but contradicting his own prior statement that he had received his copy in 1901:
In 1901, I succeeded through an acquaintance of mine (the late Court Marshal Alexei Nikolayevich Sukotin of Chernigov) in getting a manuscript that exposed with unusual perfection and clarity the course and development of the secret Jewish Freemasonic conspiracy, which would bring this wicked world to its inevitable end. The person who gave me this manuscript guaranteed it to be a faithful translation of the original documents that were stolen by a woman from one of the highest and most influential leaders of the Freemasons at a secret meeting somewhere in France — the beloved nest of Freemasonic conspiracy.[21]
Nilus also may have had personal motivations for publishing them. Some have alleged that at this time he was trying to gain influence with the Royal Family. This was, it is claimed, part of a faction fight against Papus and Nizier Anthelme Philippe at the Tsarist court (Indeed, Papus was accused in 1920 of having forged the Protocols to discredit Philippe).
Stolypin's fraud investigation, 1905
A subsequent secret investigation ordered by the newly appointed chairman of the Council of Ministers Pyotr Stolypin came to the conclusion that the Protocols first appeared in Paris in antisemitic circles around 1897–1898.[22] When Nicholas II learned of the results of this investigation, he requested: "The Protocols should be confiscated, a good cause cannot be defended by dirty means."[23] Despite the order, or because of the "good cause", numerous reprints proliferated.[20]
The Russian Revolution and the spread of the Protocols, 1920s
After the Russian Revolution, factions connected to the White movement used the Protocols to perpetrate hatred and violence against the Jews. The idea that the Bolshevik movement was a Jewish conspiracy for world domination, plus the fact that some top Bolsheviks, particularly Leon Trotsky, were Jews, sparked worldwide interest in the Protocols.
German language publications
The first and "by far the most important"[24] German translation was by Gottfried Zur Beck (pseudonym of Ludwig Müller von Hausen). It appeared in January 1920 as a part of a larger antisemitic tract[25] dated 1919. After The Times of London discussed the book respectfully in May 1920 it became a bestseller. "The Hohenzollern family helped defray the publication costs, and Kaiser Wilhelm II had portions of the book read out aloud to dinner guests".[26]
Alfred Rosenberg's 1923 edition[27] "gave a forgery a huge boost".[26]
English language publication
On October 27 and 28, 1919, the Philadelphia Public Ledger published excerpts of an English language translation as the "Red Bible," deleting all references to the purported Jewish authorship and re-casting the document as a Bolshevist manifesto.[28] The author of the articles was the paper's correspondent at the time, Carl W. Ackerman, who later became the head of the journalism department at Columbia University.
On May 8, 1920, an article[29] in The Times followed German translation and appealed for an inquiry into what it called "uncanny note of prophecy".
The first English language edition of the Protocols was published in 1920 in London. The full title was The Jewish Peril. Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion; the translator has been subsequently discovered to be George Shanks.
The most widespread English translation of the Protocols is credited (by its anonymous editor(s)) to a British correspondent for The Morning Post in Russia, Victor E. Marsden. That anonymous source further claims that Marsden was imprisoned by the Bolsheviks in the Peter and Paul Fortress, subsequently released, and returned to England. Marsden, prior to his death on October 28, 1920, had allegedly translated Chapter XII of Nilus' 1905 book on the coming of the Anti-Christ, a copy of which was at hand in the British Museum. His name does not appear in the first British imprint, issued by Eyre & Spottiswoode Ltd., nor in the second, issued by The Britons. It only first pops up in the edition issued one or two years later, in the imprint issued by the Britons Publishing Society.
In a single year 1920, five editions sold out in England. That same year in the United States, Henry Ford sponsored the printing of 500,000 copies, and from 1920 to 1922 published a series of antisemitic articles, entitled The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem, in The Dearborn Independent, a newspaper he owned. In 1921 Ford cited it as evidence of a Jewish threat: "The only statement I care to make about the Protocols is that they fit in with what is going on. They are 16 years old, and they have fitted the world situation up to this time."[30] In 1927, however, the courts ordered Ford to retract his publication and apologize; he complied, claiming his assistants had duped him. Moreover, he later expressed his admiration for Nazi Germany.[31]
In 1934, an anonymous editor expanded the compilation with "Text and Commentary" (pages 136–141). The production of this uncredited compilation was a 300-page book, an inauthentic expanded edition of the twelfth chapter of Nilus's 1905 on the coming of the anti-Christ. It consists of substantial liftings of excerpts of articles from Ford's antisemitic periodical The Dearborn Independent. This 1934 text circulates most widely in the English-speaking world, as well as on the internet.
The "Text and Commentary" concludes with a comment on Haim Weizman's October 6, 1920 remark at a banquet: "A beneficent protection which God has instituted in the life of the Jew is that He has dispersed him all over the world". Marsden, who was dead by then, is credited with the following assertion:
"It proves that the Learned Elders exist. It proves that Dr. Weizmann knows all about them. It proves that the desire for a "National Home" in Palestine is only camouflage and an infinitesimal part of the Jew's real object. It proves that the Jews of the world have no intention of settling in Palestine or any separate country, and that their annual prayer that they may all meet "Next Year in Jerusalem" is merely a piece of their characteristic make-believe. It also demonstrates that the Jews are now a world menace, and that the Aryan races will have to domicile them permanently out of Europe."[32]
This quote occurs on page 138. On the previous page, the nameless commentator has the following: "There has been recently published a volume of Theodor Herzl's Diaries, a translation of some passages of which appeared in the Jewish Chronicle of July 14, 1922". Accordingly, the commentary must have been written at least two years after Marsden's death.
The Times exposes a forgery, 1921
In 1920-1921, the history of the concepts found in the Protocols was traced back to the works of Goedsche and Jacques Crétineau-Joly by Lucien Wolf (an English Jewish journalist), and published in London in August 1921. But a dramatic expose occurred in the series of articles in The Times by its Constantinople reporter, Philip Graves, who discovered the plagiarism from the work of Maurice Joly.
According to writer Peter Grose, Allen Dulles, who was in Constantinople developing relationships in post-Ottoman political structures, discovered 'the source' of the documentation ultimately provided to The Times. Grose writes that The Times extended a loan to the source, a Russian émigré who refused to be identified, with the understanding the loan would not be repaid.[33] Colin Holmes, a lecturer in economic history of Sheffield University, identified the émigré as Michael Raslovleff, a self-identified antisemite, who gave the information to Graves so as not to "give a weapon of any kind to the Jews, whose friend I have never been."[34]
In the first article of Graves' series, entitled "A Literary Forgery", the editors of The Times wrote, "our Constantinople Correspondent presents for the first time conclusive proof that the document is in the main a clumsy plagiarism. He has forwarded us a copy of the French book from which the plagiarism is made."[35] The New York Times reprinted the articles on September 4, 1921.[36] In the same year, an entire book[37] documenting the hoax was published in the United States by Herman Bernstein. Despite this widespread and extensive debunking, the Protocols continued to be regarded as important factual evidence by antisemites.citation needed
Arab lands, 1920s
In the 1920s, the Protocols occasionally appeared in the Arab polemics linking Zionism and Bolshevism. The first Arabic translations were made from the French by Arab Christians. The first translation was published in Raqib Sahyun, a periodical of the Roman Catholic community of Jerusalem, in 1926. Another translation made by an Arab Christian appeared in Cairo in 1927 or 1928, this time as a book. The first translation by an Arab Muslim was also published in Cairo, but only in 1951.[38]
The Berne Trial, 1934–1935
In 1934, Dr. Alfred Zander, a Swiss Nazi, published a series of articles accepting the Protocols as fact. He was sued in what has come to be known as the Berne Trial. The trial began in the Cantonal Court of Bern on October 29, 1934, the plaintiffs were Dr. J. Dreyfus-Brodsky, Dr. Marcus Cohen and Dr. Marcus Ehrenpreis. On May 19, 1935 the court, after full investigation, declared the Protocols to be forgeries, plagiarisms, and obscene literature. Judge Walter Meyer, a Christian who had not heard of the Protocols earlier, said in conclusion:
"I hope, the time will come when nobody will be able to understand how in 1935 nearly a dozen sane and responsible men were able for two weeks to mock the intellect of the Bern court discussing the authenticity of the so-called Protocols, the very Protocols that, harmful as they have been and will be, are nothing but laughable nonsense".[20]
Vladimir Burtsev, a Russian emigre, anti-Bolshevik and anti-Fascist who exposed numerous Okhrana agents provocateurs in the early 1900s, served as a witness at the Berne Trial. In 1938 in Paris he published a book, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: A Proved Forgery, based on his testimony.
On November 1, 1937 the sued party of the trial applied to the Swiss Court of Appeal asking to reverse the verdict, claiming that the law, while prohibiting "obscene literature", means pornography and is inapplicable to the Protocols. The three judges focused on purely procedural aspects of the case and decided to reverse the verdict. However, the presiding judge stated clearly that the forgery of the Protocols is not questionable and expressed regret that the law does not provide enough protection for Jews from literature of that kind. The court put the costs of both trials upon the sued party.[39] This decision gave grounds for later allegations that the appeal court "confirmed authenticity of the Protocols" which is opposite to the facts.
A scholarly work on the trial is a 139 page monograph by Urs Luthi.
South Africa
In an August 1934 case in Grahamstown, South Africa, a court case took place in which Rev. A. Levy sued three Greyshirts leaders (Johannes von Strauss, von Moltke, David Hermanus Olivier) and Harry Victor Inch for defamation because they published a document said to have been stolen from the Western Road Synagogue in Port Elizabeth where Rev. Levy was Minister. The document, proven at the trial to be a forgery, alleged to set out the plans of the Jews to obtain world domination on the lines of the notorious Protocols. The court awarded Rev. Levy damages totalling £1,775 (about $8,875 at the time or about $130,000 in 2005 dollars) - £1000 against Inch, £750 against Moltke and £25 against Olivier. Inch was also sentenced to six years in prison for perjury. Nahum Sokolow appeared as a witness at the trial. In what is believed to be a legal first, the Protocols was also declared to be a forgery during the trial.
The Protocols in Nazi propaganda, 1930s-1940s
The Protocols also became a part of the Nazi propaganda effort to justify persecution of the Jews. It was made required reading for German students. In The Holocaust: The Destruction of European Jewry 1933–1945, Nora Levin states that "Hitler used the Protocols as a manual in his war to exterminate the Jews":
Despite conclusive proof that the Protocols were a gross forgery, they had sensational popularity and large sales in the 1920s and 1930s. They were translated into every language of Europe and sold widely in Arab lands, the United States, and England. But it was in Germany after World War I that they had their greatest success. There they were used to explain all of the disasters that had befallen the country: the defeat in the war, the hunger, the destructive inflation.[40]
Hitler refers to the Protocols in Mein Kampf:
... To what extent the whole existence of this people is based on a continuous lie is shown incomparably by the Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion, so infinitely hated by the Jews. They are based on a forgery, the Frankfurter Zeitung moans and screams once every week: the best proof that they are authentic. [...] the important thing is that with positively terrifying certainty they reveal the nature and activity of the Jewish people and expose their inner contexts as well as their ultimate final aims.[41]
Hitler endorsed it in his speeches from August 1921 on, and it was studied in German classrooms after the Nazis came to power. At the height of World War II, the Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels proclaimed: "The Zionist Protocols are as up-to-date today as they were the day they were first published."[26] In Norman Cohn's words, it served as the Nazis' "warrant for genocide".
Fascist Italy
While the first edition of the Protocols (1921) did not have much success, in the wake of the growing alliance between Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, the Protocols were re-published in Italy in 1937 by Giovanni Preziosi with an introduction by Julius Evola.
Contemporary usage and popularity
While there is continued popularity of The Protocols in nations from South America to Asia, since the defeat of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy in WWII governments or political leaders in most parts of the world have generally avoided claims that The Protocols represent factual evidence of a real Jewish conspiracy. The exception to this is the Middle East, where a large number of Arab and Muslim regimes and leaders have endorsed them as authentic.
Past endorsements of The Protocols from Presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat of Egypt, one of the President Arifs of Iraq, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, and Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya, among other political and intellectual leaders of the Arab world, are echoed by 21st century endorsements from the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Sheikh Ekrima Sa'id Sabri and Hamas to the education ministry of Saudi Arabia.[42]
Middle East
As popular opposition to Israel spread across the Middle East in the years following its creation in 1948, many Arab governments funded new printings of the Protocols, and taught them in their schools as historical fact. They have been accepted as such by many Islamist organizations, such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Reportedly, Arabic editions issued in the Middle East were found on sale as far away as London.[43] There are at least nine different Arabic translations of the Protocols and more editions than in any other language including German.[38] The Protocols also figure prominently in the antisemitic propaganda distributed internationally by the Arab countries and have spread to other Muslim countries, such as Pakistan, Malaysia, and Indonesia.[38]
Syria
The Protocols is a best-seller in Syria[44] and, together with other antisemitic materials published there, is distributed throughout the Arab world.[45] In 1997, the two-volume 8th edition of the Protocols, translated and edited by 'Ajaj Nuwayhid, was published by Mustafa Tlass's publishing house and exhibited and sold at the Damascus International Book Fair (IBF) and at the Cairo IBF. At the 2005 Cairo IBF a stand of the Syrian publisher displayed a new, 2005 edition of the Protocols authorized by the Syrian Ministry of Information.[46][47] In Syria government-controlled television channels occasionally broadcast mini-series concerning the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, along with several other anti-semitic themes.[48]
Egypt
During the presidency of Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt was the main source of internationally distributed antisemitic propaganda. In 1960, the Protocols were featured in an article published by Salah Dasuqi, military governor of Cairo, in al-Majallaaa, the official cultural journal.[38] In 1965, the Egyptian government released an English-language pamphlet titled Israel, the Enemy of Africa and distributed it throughout the English-speaking countries of Africa. The pamphlet used the Protocols and The International Jew as its sources and concluded that all the Jews were cheats, thieves, and murderers.[38]
In a foreword to a translation of Shimon Peres' book The New Middle East, the Egyptian state-owned publisher al-Ahram editorialized in 1995:
'When The Protocols of the Elders of Zion were discovered, some 200 years ago, and translated in various languages, including Arabic, the World Zionist Organization attempted to deny the existence of the plot, and claimed forgery. The Zionists even endeavoured to purchase all the existing copies, in order to prevent their circulation. But today, Shimon Peres proves unequivocally that the Protocols are authentic, and that they tell the truth.'
An article in the Egyptian state-owned newspaper al-Akhbar on February 3, 2002 stated:
All the evils that currently affect the world are the doings of Zionism. This is not surprising, because the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which were established by their wise men more than a century ago, are proceeding according to a meticulous and precise plan and time schedule, and they are proof that even though they are a minority, their goal is to rule the world and the entire human race."
In October 2002, a private Egyptian television company Dream TV produced a 41-part "historical drama" A Knight Without a Horse (Fars Bela Gewad), largely based on the Protocols,[49] which ran on 17 Arabic-language satellite television channels, including government-owned Egypt Television (ETV), for a month, causing concerns in the West.[50] Egypt's Information Minister Safwat El-Sherif announced that the series "contains no antisemitic material".[51]
On November 17, 2003, an Egyptian weekly al-Usbu‘ reported that the manuscript museum at the Alexandria Library, displayed the first Arabic translation of the Protocols at the section of the holy books of Judaism, next to a Torah scroll. The museum's director Dr. Youssef Ziedan was quoted as saying in an interview:
"...it has become one of the sacred [texts] of the Jews, next to their first constitution, their religious law ... more important to the Zionist Jews of the world than the Torah, because they conduct Zionist life according to it ... It is only natural to place the book in the framework of an exhibit of Torah."[52]
It also quoted him as saying that no more than one million Jews were killed by the Nazis, but Zionists manipulated the "knowledge that has reached the world".[52] See also:- Holocaust denial.
Dr. Ziedan strongly denies these quotes, accusing al-Usbu‘ of attributing "fabricated, groundless lies" to him and stating that "the Protocols is a racist, silly, fabricated book":
- "The story began with an article in an Egyptian newspaper, al-Usbu‘, two weeks ago (on November 17, 2003), which alleged quoting from me utterly senseless statements intertwining facts with fancies. A month before, a journalist from the aforementioned newspaper interviewed me concerning the recent refurbishment of the manuscript and rare book museum. I handed her a written statement, as was the case with other journalists who covered the same news. Although, she concluded her article with my exact words, she started it with fabricated, groundless lies. She falsely reported me saying that I placed an edition of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion at the center of the museum alongside the Jewish Torah and divine books. Moreover, she claimed that I told her that this book is more significant then the Torah... On my part, I would like to maintain to the visitors of ziedan.com that the Protocols is a racist, silly, fabricated book. Perhaps, I should consider more thoroughly the Jewish issue on the academic level and furnish my vision of the interaction of religions. As civilized people, we totally renounce racism and call for tolerance and constructive interaction between people."[53]
After the publication, director of the Library Dr. Ismail Serageldin issued a statement:
"Preliminary investigation determined that the book was briefly displayed in a showcase devoted to rotating samples of curiosities and unusual items in our collection. ... The book is a well-known 19th century fabrication to foment anti-Jewish feelings. The book was promptly withdrawn from public display, but its very inclusion showed bad judgment and insensitivity..."[54]
Iran
The first Iranian edition of the Protocols was issued during the summer of 1978 before the Iranian Revolution after which the Protocols were widely publicized by the Iranian government. A publication called Imam, published by the Iranian embassy in London, quoted extensively from the Protocols in its issues of 1984 and 1985.[38] In 1985 a new edition of the Protocols was printed and widely distributed by the Islamic Propagation Organization, International Relations Department, in Tehran. The Astan Quds Razavi Foundation in Mashhad, Iran, one of the wealthiest institutions in Iran, financed publication of the Protocols in 1994. Parts of the Protocols were published by the daily Jomhouri-ye Eslami in 1994, under the heading The Smell of Blood, Zionist Schemes. Sobh, a far right monthly newspaper, published excerpts from the Protocols under the heading The text of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion for establishing the Jewish global rule in its December 1998–January 1999 issue, illustrated with a caricature of the Jewish snake swallowing the globe.
Iranian writer and researcher Ali Baqeri, who researched the Protocols, finds their plan for world domination to be merely part of an even more grandiose scheme, saying in Sobh in 1999:
- "The ultimate goal of the Jews... after conquering the globe... is to extract from the hands of the Lord many stars and galaxies".
In April 2004, the Iranian television station Al-Alam broadcast Al-Sameri wa Al-Saher, a series that reported as fact several conspiracy theories about the Holocaust, Jewish control of Hollywood, and the Protocols.[55] The Iran Pavilion of the 2005 Frankfurt Book Fair had the Protocols, as well as The International Jew available.[56] In 2008 "The Secret of Armageddon" - An Iranian TV "Documentary" Claiming That "a Jewish Plan for the Genocide of Humanity," includes a conspiracy for the takeover of Iran by local Jewish and Bahai communities was based on the Protocols.[57]
On the other hand, Iranian author Abdollah Shahbazi, known for his historical reports of several important events of Iran's history, has denied the authenticity of the Protocols officially on his website and has referred to several international investigations as the basis of his claim.[58]
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabian schoolbooks contain explicit summaries of the Protocols as factual:
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: These are secret resolutions, most probably of the aforementioned Basel congress. They were discovered in the nineteenth century. The Jews tried to deny them, but there was ample evidence proving their authenticity and that they were issued by the elders of Zion. The Protocols can be summarized in the following points:
The cogent proof of the authenticity of these resolutions, as well as of the hellish Jewish schemes included therein, is the [actual] carrying out of many of those schemes, intrigues and conspiracies that are found in them. Anyone who reads them — and they were published in the nineteenth century — grasps today to what extent much of what is found there has been realized.[59]
- Upsetting the foundations of the world's present society and its systems, in order to enable Zionism to have a monopoly of world government.
- Eliminating nationalities and religions, especially the Christian nations.
- Striving to increase corruption among the present regimes in Europe, as Zionism believes in their corruption and [eventual] collapse.
- Controlling the media of publication, propaganda and the press, using gold for stirring up disturbances, seducing people by means of lust and spreading wantonness.
According to Freedom House 2006 report, Saudi "textbook for boys for Tenth Grade on Hadith and Islamic Culture contains a lesson on the "Zionist Movement." It is a curious blend of wild conspiracy theories about Masonic Lodges, Rotary Clubs, and