HBO's ‘Protocols of Zion’--Why all the attention over a century-old book proven to be a hoax?

Jewish World Review ^ | 9-28-05 | Steven Stalinsky

[SJackson]

This month marks the 100 year anniversary of the first printing of the infamous anti-Semitic forgery, "Protocols of the Elders of Zion." The anniversary will be commemorated throughout the world including a two day conference at Boston University's Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies. Tonight in New York, HBO Films will premier the documentary "Protocols of Zion" by Marc Levin's Blowback Productions (www.blowbackproductions.com). The documentary will be screened later in the month in selected theatres throughout America.

"The Protocols" are frequently referred to in the Arab and Iranian press connecting Jewish conspiracies to among other things: assassinations of Arab leaders; the war in Iraq; control of Hollywood, the press, economics, and world resources; and on an alleged war on Islam. As the Levin's film illustrates, the most popular conspiracies are related to Jewish involvement in the 9-11 attacks.

For example, the president of the Middle East Center for Studies and Public Relations, Hisham Jaber, appeared on Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV on July 11, 2005 stating: "I believe the events of 9-11 were not… perpetrated by Al Qaeda alone…it is global Zionism that stands to gain the most from this…we know that since the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Zionism has forged the New Testament - and by now, 60 million in the U.S. alone have left Christianity to become believers in the Torah. Global Zionism has tried to forge the Holy Koran…"

The secretary-general of the Islamic Universities Association, Jafar Abd Al-Salim, also appeared on Hezbollah TV on April 22, 2004: "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion clearly refer to this: 'Spread corruption amongst all human societies so you can rule.'...All the pornographic films in the world are made by Jewish companies, and the same goes for drugs."

[gobucks]

good question

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

..........................................

[Al Gator]

Just a question:

Who, and how, and when, were the protocols "proven" to be a hoax?

Legitimate question, no sarcasm.

[satchmodog9]

It furthers the agenda. JOOOOOOOOS

[LIConFem]

Maybe "Rome" ain't workin' out too well for them?

[camle]

are these guys saying that al queda worked with the jews on 9/11 or that they gave them warning?

right. sure. yeah. hugh.

[jdaves]

I thought it interesting that despite the article's title, the HBO documentary is mentioned only in the first paragraph. The rest of the article is about how those evil Muslims use a forged book to say bad things about Jews.

Enough of that already. Tell us if the movie's any good.

[JasonC]

Large portions of it were discovered to be plagarized word for word from a 19th century political tract, that was directed against Louis Napoleon, not the Jews. It's publication was traced to Russian intelligence agents in Paris around the turn of the century, presumably to stoke the anti-semitism then rampant in France, particularly in monarchist, anti-Republican, church, and army circles. Besides the inherent implausibility, then, we know it was a plagarism and forgery operation, and we know who broadcast it and for what immediate political motives.

[gobucks]

I think I have the answer to the good question:

To provoke antisemitism. And HBO is run by far left communist wannbeess... let's connect the dots...

[bahblahbah]

First of all, most of it was plagiarized by earlier works that weren't about Jews.

Just read Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocols_of_the_Elders_of_Zion

[robowombat]

A Jewish journalist, Benjamin Segal, wrote the first and still most detailed debunking in the mid-1920's. His book 'A Lie and a Libel' with a long and interesting introduction is available from the University of Nebraska Press priced at $10.

[AppyPappy]

Not only that, I have found pieces of it with the subjects changed to other groups.

I got kicked off a religious mailing list for claiming it was anti-semitic. Oh the irony.

[joesnuffy]

People tend to believe lies that reflect what is already
in their hearts..

imo

[wita]

So much horse manure, so little time. All one needs to know is, blaming everything on jews, gwb, conservatives, christians, pick a subject, is a smoke screen for sure, double your money back guarantee. Don't be fooled, don't jump to conclusions, don't believe half of what you hear, don't go off half cocked, take MSM with a grain of salt, examine lots of evidence, don't get buried by conspiracies as they are mostly smoke screens as well. What matters is basic principles of truth, which trumps mythical or real conspiracies.

[Leo Carpathian]

Interesting to compare what has happenend since the book was written and reality.

[wideawake]

Who, and how, and when, were the protocols "proven" to be a hoax?

Who: the High Court of the Swiss Canton of Berne.

How: by demonstration of evidence that reached the rigorous standards of legal proof in Switzerland.

When: October 29, 1934.

Facts: The book known as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion first acquired that title when it was printed in the late summer of 1903 in the Russian periodical Znamya in Moscow.

The document is a reprint of a slavishly literal translation of parts of a book titled Biarritz by the German secret policeman Hermann Goedsche, which he published in Berlin in 1868.

The Russian translation from which the Protocols were taken was first printed in 1872 and reprinted in 1891 before being serialized in Znamya.

The chapter of Biarritz which contains the text of the Protocols is almost identical to a pamphlet published by the Frenchman Maurice Joly in Belgium entitled Dialogue aux enfers entre Machiavelli et Motesquieu which is not about Jews, but about Machiavelli and his cohorts discussing how to impose tyranny on France - it is a thinly veiled satire targeting the then-ruler of France, Napoleon III.

In Biarritz Goedsche changed all the names and references from French factions and political philosophers into references to Jews and Judaism. Otherwise, he left the text pretty much intact.

Joly himself cribbed his Dialogue pamphlet from a chapter of an historical romance novel entitled Le Mysteres du peuple written by fiercely anti-clerical Napoleon supporter Eugene Sue in 1856. In Sue's fiction work there is a long chapter about a secret meeting of Jesuit priests.

At the Swiss trial, this documentary history was traced.

The Protocols began as an anti-Catholic piece of propaganda in a French novel, became an anti-Monarchist political pamphlet in Belgium, became an anti-Semitic diatribe in a Prussian political book and wound up as an anti-Semitic diatribe in a Russian daily newspaper.

[JimRed]

All the pornographic films in the world are made by Jewish companies, and the same goes for drugs."

So, all those opium growing Afghans are really JEWS???

[wideawake]

Thanks for the info. I didn't know what the protocols were about.

In their anti-Catholic, anti-Monarchist and anti-Semitic versions, the Protocols text is supposedly a transcript of a secret meeting (in the anti-Catholic version the meeting takes place between Jesuits in a church, in the anti-Monarchist it is a meeting of deceased monarchist philosophers and supporters in Hell, in the original anti-Semitic version it is a meeting of rabbis and prominent Jews in a cemetery).

At the meeting the participants discuss dishonest and underhanded ways of gaining political control for their small group. Their main strategy is to use lies and fear to confuse and divide the masses, to bribe and suborn leaders of the masses into doing their will and to thus wield ultimate power from behind the scenes.

It is the classic work of conspiracy theory.