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The Protocols of the Elders of Zion – or the Jewish Peril, 2003 (All pictures: Neelwafurat website)
Just over one hundred years ago, an anti-Semitic book by the name of Protocols of the Elders of Zion was penned. It discussed an alleged secret Jewish plot to establish a Jewish kingdom that would rule the entire world. The kingdom was to be established through sabotaging and corrupting the world’s peoples and governments.
This forgery became one of the central documents used by the Nazi German regime to “prove” why the world had to get rid of the “Jewish danger.” But later, following the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, the Protocols became a tool used by the Muslim world to attack the Zionist movement and the new Jewish state.
Muslim politicians, clerics and journalists all refer to the Protocols as if they were historical evidence of a Jewish plot to rule the world.
In January 2005, the Washington-based Freedom House’s Center for Religious Freedom released a report exposing the dissemination of hate propaganda in the United States by the government of Saudi Arabia. The report was based on a year-long study of over two hundred original documents, all disseminated, published or otherwise generated by the government of Saudi Arabia and collected from more than a dozen mosques in the United States. According to the report, textbooks and documents “treat the forged Protocols of the Elders of Zion as historical fact, and avow that the Muslim’s duty is to eliminate the State of Israel… This discredited document is seeing a revival in Arab outlets…”
Indeed, Arab magazines, radio stations, TV outlets and even Internet forums are making use of the Protocols. In 2002, a television series called Rider without a Horse, based on the Protocols, was aired in Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon. The series had a high rating despite – or maybe because of – the harsh Israeli and American protest it elicited.
New Arabic-language editions of the Protocols are constantly being published. In the past two years, two new editions have appeared in Lebanon and Egypt. The Lebanese edition was later promoted and sold at Syria’s International Book Fair, under the auspices of the Syrian Education Ministry. The Egyptian edition was published by Al-Akhbar Publishing House, which is controlled by the Cairo regime.
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The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, 1996
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The Palestinian Authority (P.A.) also considers this book a serious historical document.
An article recently published in Ruya, a magazine run by the Palestinian State Information Service (SIS), was entitled ‘Israeli assassinations and political killings – roots and reasons.’ The article claims “It is historically known that some Jews became famous for standing behind clandestine groups and movements; [they] deposed kings and presidents; … [they] killed, assassinated and conspired since the dawn of history and used their Talmud to write the Protocols of the Elders of Zion…”
The SIS is a Palestinian government institution directly affiliated with the Office of the P.A. Chairman. Its website states, “the SIS was founded by a presidential decree on February 12, 1996. Since then, the SIS has been working as the official body responsible for following up, organizing and developing information and media activities in the Palestinian territories.”
A recent interview The Media Line conducted with Sheikh ‘Ikrama ‘Sabri, the P.A.-appointed mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian areas, also revealed similar thoughts regarding the perceived legitimacy of the Protocols.
“The Jews’ aspiration in regard to the entire world is to control its economy, as is the case now in America. This, I took from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” ‘Sabri, the most influential Muslim cleric in the P.A., said.
Similar sentiments were expressed in a 2002 interview given to the Emirates daily Al-Bayan by Raef Najm, Jordan’s former minister of religious endowments.
“The United States and Israel want to control all the Arab countries, and the world at large. They want all the oil, and Israeli control of the Middle East region, in accordance with protocol 24 of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” Najm said.
Why are the Protocols so popular in the Muslim world?
In 2003, the Egyptian scholar Professor ‘Abd Al-Wahhab Al-Masiri, a recognized expert on Judaism and Zionism, published The Protocols, Judaism, and Zionism.
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Cover of Al-Masiri’s book
Al-Masiri adamantly rejected the authenticity of the Protocols, saying the book was written by anti-Semites. Al-Masiri believes, as do most scholars, that the Protocols were most likely written – or edited – by a Russian professor, Sergei Nilus. Large parts of the Protocols were actually translated almost word for word from a French political satire – Dialogues in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu – written by Maurice Joli in 1864.
Joli, a Catholic, wrote the piece as an attack against the political ambitions of Napoleon III and his original work never mentioned Jews. Nilus later adapted the text, specifying the Jews as conspirators.
According to Al-Masiri, the roots of “Jewish conduct” in the Palestinian territories are not to be found in Jewish holy books and traditions, but are rather an expression of colonialist conduct similar to white colonialism of the American continent and South Africa.
As the following sentence from his book makes clear, Al-Masiri is not pro-Israeli: “The Zionist sanctification of violence is a natural continuation of the racist imperialistic culture, which the Zionists followed… [but] it is not rooted in the Torah, Talmud or the Protocols.”
Widespread use of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in Arab countries “is probably due to an explanation [Arabs attempt to make for] the volume of colonialism, and for the defeats inflicted on the Arabs by Jewish groups,” Al-Masiri wrote.
Allegations of the control of the so-called Jewish and Zionist lobby over Western media and decision-making institutions are widespread throughout the Arab world. Al-Masiri, while not revoking these allegations, writes that the Zionists are indeed a part of the Western colonialist regime. This alleged control is not, however, a result of Jewish wealth or conspiracies, Al-Masiri writes.