Martin Bormann was Rothschild Agent -- Damning Evidence

Taliban Still Working for the CIA?

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http://www.henrymakow.com/taliban_still_working_for_the.html

November 6, 2009

November 14-25, 2001: US Secretly Authorizes Airlift of Pakistani and Taliban Fighters

  

At the request of the Pakistani government, the US secretly allows rescue flights into the besieged Taliban stronghold of Kunduz, in Northern Afghanistan, to save Pakistanis fighting for the Taliban (and against US forces) and bring them back to Pakistan. Pakistan's President "Musharraf won American support for the airlift by warning that the humiliation of losing hundreds--and perhaps thousands--of Pakistani Army men and intelligence operatives would jeopardize his political survival."[New Yorker, 1/21/2002] Dozens of senior Pakistani military officers, including two generals, are flown out. [NOW with Bill Moyers, 2/21/2003] In addition, it is reported that the Pakistani government assists 50 trucks filled with foreign fighters to escape the town. [New York Times, 11/24/2001] Many news articles at the time suggest an airlift is occurring. [Independent, 11/16/2001; New York Times, 11/24/2001; BBC, 11/26/2001; Independent, 11/26/2001; Guardian, 11/27/2001; MSNBC, 11/29/2001] Significant media coverage fails to develop, however. The US and Pakistani governments deny the existence of the airlift. [US Department of State, 11/16/2001; New Yorker, 1/21/2002] On December 2, when asked to assure that the US did not allow such an airlift, Rumsfeld says, "Oh, you can be certain of that. We have not seen a single--to my knowledge, we have not seen a single airplane or helicopter go into Afghanistan in recent days or weeks and extract people and take them out of Afghanistan to any country, let alone Pakistan." [MSNBC, 4/13/2003] Reporter Seymour Hersh believes that Rumsfeld must have given approval for the airlift. [NOW with Bill Moyers, 2/21/2003] However, The New Yorker magazine reports, "What was supposed to be a limited evacuation apparently slipped out of control and, as an unintended consequence, an unknown number of Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters managed to join in the exodus." A CIA analyst says, "Many of the people they spirited away were in the Taliban leadership" who Pakistan wanted for future political negotiations. US intelligence was "supposed to have access to them, but it didn't happen," he says. According to Indian intelligence, airlifts grow particularly intense in the last three days before the city falls on November 25. Of the 8,000 remaining al-Qaeda, Pakistani, and Taliban, about 5,000 are airlifted out and 3,000 surrender. [New Yorker, 1/21/2002] Hersh later claims that "maybe even some of bin Laden's immediate family were flown out on those evacuations." [NOW with Bill Moyers, 2/21/2003]

Entity Tags: Taliban, Pakistan, Taliban, Al-Qaeda, Donald Rumsfeld

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, War in Afghanistan

Comments

David said (November 16, 2009):

n light of your recent article, I was wondering if you had seen this? Sibel Edmonds come up with some more astounding testimony. It's also very enlightening the way she explains the whole thing. I had no idea at any time what a role Turkey played in all this, until I read her latest.

But this is what Brzezinski and Bernard Lewis had been intending all along, was igniting Islamic "fundamentalism". Creating and educating the Taliban seems to have been a long-standing part of this project.

It's all very Weishauptian, that they recognized they couldn't change the older generations, so they created a new one. The "madrassas" were all linked to the "Deobandi" school, which has of all the "revivalist" movements in the last few centuries, has been the one most closely linked with the Wahhabi heresy of Saudi Arabia.

The more I look at the Taliban, and realize what they did, the more I realize what an utter absurdity and grotesque caricature of Islam they are. It's totally ridiculous. But that can only be accomplished by Wahhabism, which is fundamentally a rejection of traditional Islam. By not referring to past precedent, they can invent Islam into whatever they want, and brainwash legions of ignorant shepherd boys into their radical nonsense.

http://lukery.blogspot.com/2009/07/bombshell-bin-laden-worked-for-us-till.html

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Oliver said (November 10, 2009):

a quick note. In a brief waiting time during (construction-type) work here in Germany, I talked to a man who said that he had worked for the US military as a helicopter pilot (although he didn´t have a US accent). His words went closely like this: "We trained the Taliban. They had to do the dirty work for us. They skinned the Russians and laid them into the sun. When I was sent to Nicaragua I quit. I´m not a total idiot." He said that in an environment where people didn´t know about these things, and would have probably respond in disbelief. I would have asked more questions, but we had to proceed.

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Dan said (November 9, 2009):

Salman's partially right. He's right that the bulk of men that joined the original Taliban (that fought the Russians) were devout Muslims motivated to expel foreign aggressors and act as vigilantes against criminals and collaborators.
Here's what an Afghani man I knew in Santa Fe recounted to me in 2002. During the early 1980's when the Russians invaded, he had joined the Taliban as a patriot. It was rather like the French or Greek Resistance groups of WWII. This man was in his 50's when I met him. He was a distinguished fellow from a line of leaders in the traditional Afghani culture. As such he was instilled that it was his duty to serve God to preserve and protect the culture from invaders and traitors.
For several years he lived in the rugged mountains ambushing Russian truck convoys. When the Russians withdrew, he was enthusiastic to return home but he got word from friend in his village that people were waiting to kill him when he came back. They'd learned that the Taliban was controlled by CIA, and other bands of Taliban were dong bad things. He, and none of the volunteers he'd fought with had a clue while they'd been engaged hunting Russians in the mountains. He said he had no choice but to flee to Pakistan and request political asylum in the United States. He can never go home again, and he was intensly bitter about that.

And none of the above even touches on the opium/heroin department of the scheme. That dates back even further to the 18th century British East India Company opium trade. 19th century American symbiosis in the opium trade isn't hidden at all - it's just left out of the curriculum in our schools.
And right in the middle of the history of opium and later, morphine and heroin, is Afghanistan. 90% of the world supply of opium is Afghani. that's why the US is there and why the Brits are still calling the shots for all .

It's been well over twenty years since everybody in the US had been informed of the Iran/Contra/P2 Lodge/Vatican Bank network. What part of the reality can't people ever seem to understand? Such news stories that broke during the 80's only explained and confirmed things I'd heard 'on the street' during the seventies. All the above scandals were somehow swept under the rug by 1994 - till serious reporter named Gary Web opened it all up again in 1996 with incontrovertible evidence that the top crack distributer in the United States (Ricky Ross) was supplied and protected by CIA. (As you know Web 'suicided' in 2006 with two 'self-inflicted' shots to the head).

Gary Webb, Ricky Ross
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyLJtkxPC6I&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxUQJbsdX0E&NR=1

I can't understand why generation after generation in this country can't get it -- war is a racket.

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Salman said (November 8, 2009):

Henry, you made some astounding assertions. But the truth is more complex than what you know.
First of all, the original Taliban (the ones pre-911) were "Puritan" Muslims, who brought peace, stability, and order to the region. The ORIGINAL Taliban are better people, and while not perfect - at least stopped criminal activities, banditry, gang rapes of women, and their harshness and enforcing of private behaviour in people's lives made others turn away from them. Their mistreatment of the Hazaras as revenge for the back-stabbing massacre of Taliban soldiers the year before (1997) led to the revenge attack on Hazara soldiers in 1998. They were the best that Afghanistan had to offer after years of war and civil war.

Now, we have in recent years, the neo-Taliban. The ones in Pakistan are a bunch of anarchists created by the Mossad/CIA. As to one of the men shot and killed by the MI5 on the London Tubes (Mohammed Siddique Khan), he was sent weapons by the MI5 to traffick into Afghan/Pakistan border in order to arm the Resistance. He was an MI5 agent.

while I know for a fact that the current Beitullah Mahsud was a criminal who established ties with the Mossad. Most of the terrorism in the world is done by a special secretive branch of the Israeli army apparatus called the Diamond Unit (Sayeret Yahalom). These people just go in and blow people up. That's their job. And they are secetive about it. When they are to go into another country, they often wear the labels of other Western intelligence agencies and mercenaries. Blackwater is not blowing up trucks in Pakistan.

It is the Jewish terror units under the Blackwater label. Same thing goes for terror ops in Iraq. The supposed SAS in Basra were not British agents, they were Jewish terrorists. And US army personel posing as Arabs trying to blow cars up tend to be Jews and/or Israelis. For the most part, the ONLY terrorists in the world to blow up civilian targets be they in market places, malls, subways, mosques, churches, synagogues, and other places OFTEN TEND to be Jewish psychopaths. Especially if they dress up as Arabs/Muslims.

Iraqis are telling us that OVER 20 THOUSAND ISRAELI COMMANDOS entered Iraq after the invasion in 2003. Where do you think these scum left after Iraq? They penetrated Pakistan, Iran, India, and Afghanistan.

There are still many original dedicated Taliban fighters left in Afghanistan. However, the reason why they are getting assistance has to do with the fact that the Jews who started the war want to basically prolong the war and profiteer off it for as long as they possibly can. Have you watched Lord of War about the Jewish gangster Victor Bout? The Jews know that Afghanistan can't be contained and that they are going to lose the war either ways, so what better way to handle the situation than infiltrate the resistance and subvert the original agenda of driving out the invaders into something else?

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Jim said (November 8, 2009):

Most members of Congress and Senate have inside tips to investments, based upon war, that earn these greedy pigs extra money. It is no coincidence that Afghanistan (like Vietman) is the world's major producer of Heroin, besides being a natural gas and oil pipeline. Military contracts to firms like Boeing, BAE, Northrop Grumman, etc... are in the billions of dollars.

As Ron Paul would say, just bring all troops home from around the world, put half of them on the US borders with Mexico and Canada, and you save the US middle class over one trillion dollars per year and suddenly create millions of jobs. This benefit to the middle class will not happen until there is a complete turnover of DC. This will require revolution, which will be Libertarian based and led by white people.

Without this revolution, the US is doomed to fight wars until the end, which will not be far off. The unemployment rate is already ~20%, and almost half of the population is on subsidies, so after the hyper inflation kicks in, the US will resemble Wiemar Germany. The appearance of a real Hitler type in the US is not out of the question as white people do not historically play second fiddle.

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David said (November 8, 2009):

It is time that you simply tell your readers to CURSE the evil that is besieging our world, to their destruction. You have given us enough evidence. Curses do work. They, of course, wish that we light the candle and NOT curse the darkness. But, it is in cursing the darkness that success will be reaped!

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Luther said (November 8, 2009):

You are so right about the Taliban being in league with the CIA, and the reason is opium poppies. Earlier this week it was disclosed that the newly re-elected president of Afghanistan's brother has been on the CIA payroll for a least eight years. The main reason for this arrangement is he is to protect the poppy fields that are used to make opium. This is the country's only growing industry (no pun intended), and soldiers are constantly told not to damage these fields in any way. These crops are the CIA's main means of existence according to WHITEOUT: the CIA, Drugs and The Press 1999 by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffry Sinclair.

Another thing about Al Qaeda, is it not also interesting that when the military forces are close to capturing a couple of these guys, they seem to get away at the last possible moment. Once again I am reminded of the book 1984 by George Orwell. The main character Winston Smith says the Ministry of Information reports (propaganda, and he works for the MI) state, "...we have always been at war and will always be at war!" Then the job of the ministry is to rewrite history and change the facts so no one catches on to the lies being spread to keep the war going. One day it is this "We are at war with East Asian and Eurasia are our allies!" Then the next day it is "We are at war with Eurasia and East Asia are our allies!" Another trend I have noticed is that the news reports say one of these slick international terrorists has been killed during a mounted assault and bombing raid. The next thing they do is resurrect him so they can kill him again!
David Icke, Alex Jones and Jeff Rense have all pointed out these instances on their sites with regularity.

The Ministry of Information also diminishes the language so that people are encouraged to believe Newspeak and Doublethink (example: War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery etc.) so they can always be favoured by Big Brother. Be a good automaton, and you will be rewarded... When I hear many of these reports I want to suggest that the average citizen read 1984 and A CLOCKWORK ORANGE every year to follow the news reports, rather how we are being misled by the media. They write what they are told to and we are expected to believe it without question. I'd like to hear more about this freedom we are supposed to be enjoying...

Thanks for all your research and reports since I quite enjoyed "The Original Crypto Jews". I hope there will eventually be one on how the Afrikan community in America is harder on itself than any other community when it comes to stealing from and exploiting its capabilities instead of moving ahead.

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Carl said (November 8, 2009):

This is almost certainly the case. I would return to the early days after the invasion of Iraq when Bush declared hostilities over. Then the car bombs started, of course, the big give away was "craters"...car/truck bombs don`t make craters, they even showed an explosion from distance, clearly this was CGI. These early so called car bombs, were in my estimation, weapons fired from distant gunships.

This thing about IED`s is another none starter. You can jam remote IED`s, so you need it hard wired. I just don`t believe they are wandering around with ready built IED`s , long rolls of wire, shovel and pick-axe, just to kill a few soldiers at a time. You`ll note, its usually one vehicle that gets hit...do they only send one out at a time? I doubt it, so Mr Taliban is a few hundred metres away, why not use RPG`s and take all the vehicles out?

In Basra British SAS were caught with explosives and remote detonators and two US military, also dressed as Arabs, were caught parking a car bomb in Baghdad.

This control of both sides isn`t just in the military. I happen to believe that many serious traffic accidents are triggered/setup by the state. The idea that people can get through a whole week of work, then on a Friday afternoon, be looking forward to a nice weekend, just is not allowed.

We can`t just think of NWO control being limited to work and MSM, we spend a lot of time driving. Ruining a few hundred thousand drivers day with manipulated accidents is a great way to induce stress. I don`t know how they are doing this, but it is likely to be some sort of electromagnetic mind control system...I keep an eye on the traffic, you would expect to have average weeks, bad weeks, but we NEVER get that freakish week were nothing big happens, its always a steady pitch with spikes...no troughs. Off topic, but still relevant to understanding our warped world.

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Don said (November 8, 2009):

Dear Dr Makow because I am a little paranoid after reading your books one reason I fear we are in Afghanistan besides surrounding Iran may be to put troops who will not fire on who will not fire on Americans. With the economy driving people to join the military with the lowered standards of even having a criminal records for Obama to build his internal Army for Martial Law. The majority of those serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are white and joined the Army Reserves to get an education with the incentives that were offered since Reagan in a volunteer Army. My nephew is in Special Forces in Afganistan at this moment. Blackwater has offered him all most a million to work for them when his enlistment is up. It seems that the only profitable thing the US can do is to fight wars to keep the bankers and oil companies rich. I do however believe that Iran is a threat to Israel and has to be dealt with in the end by force. I do support Israel even though I disagree with their policies which I fear will lead to self destruction and they cannot see as you do they are being used by this Masonry cabal.

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Asim said (November 8, 2009):

ou put it so aptly in your latest article concerning the war in Afghanistan. Ultimately the end goal is to obliterate Islam as the last remaining barrier to the Masonic One World Government..According to Islamic prophecies relating to the sayings of the Prophet Muhammed (pbuh), an army will rise in the end days amidst the chaos of war in a region called Khorason, and they will be made up of the most devout and righteous muslims. They will march through all the way to Israel and liberate Palestine and surrounding areas, and no one will be able to stop them. Khorason is a region in Afghanistan, populated by the Pashtuns, who are devout muslims and who make up the bulk of the Taliban. What is very interesting here is that according to Wikepedia and other sources, the Pashtuns are actually descendants of the lost 12 tribes of Isreal!!!! That's right, they're ancestry is JEWISH! Furthermore, they will restore Masonic Isreal to how it was during the time of Prophet Moses, then known as Bani Israel, only to then be confronted by Al Masih Ad Dajjal-the Anti Christ, who will make himself publicly known from of all places, IRAN!!! We are living in interesting times indeed.

http://www.iwpr.net/?p=arr&s=f&o=356886

fghan Recovery Report

Helicopter Rumour Refuses to Die

   

Many Afghans believe foreign forces providing support for insurgents in the north.

By Ahmad Kawoosh in Mazar-e-Sharif (ARR No. 343, 26-Oct-09)

Persistent accounts of western forces in Afghanistan using their helicopters to ferry Taleban fighters, strongly denied by the military, is feeding mistrust of the forces that are supposed to be bringing order to the country.

One such tale came from a soldier from the 209th Shahin Corps of the Afghan National Army, fighting against the growing insurgency in Kunduz province in northern Afghanistan. Over several months, he had taken part in several pitched battles against the armed opposition. 

“Just when the police and army managed to surround the Taleban in a village of Qala-e-Zaal district, we saw helicopters land with support teams,” he said. “They managed to rescue their friends from our encirclement, and even to inflict defeat on the Afghan National Army.”

This story, in one form or another, is being repeated throughout northern Afghanistan. Dozens of people claim to have seen Taleban fighters disembark from foreign helicopters in several provinces. The local talk is of the insurgency being consciously moved north, with international troops ferrying fighters in from the volatile south, to create mayhem in a new location.

Helicopters are almost exclusively the domain of foreign forces in Afghanistan – the international military controls the air space, and has a virtual monopoly on aircraft. So when Afghans see choppers, they think foreign military.

“Our fight against the Taleban is nonsense,” said the soldier from Shahin Corps. “Our foreigner ‘friends’ are friendlier to the opposition.”

For months or even years, rumours have been circulating in Afghanistan that the Taleban are being financed or even directly supported militarily by the foreign forces.

In part it stems from an inability to believe that major foreign armies cannot defeat a ragtag bunch of insurgents; in addition, Afghanistan has been a centre of foreign intrigue for so long that belief in plots comes naturally to many war-weary Afghans.

The international troops hotly deny that they are supporting the insurgents.

“This entire business with the helicopters is just a rumour,” said Brigadier General Juergen Setzer, recently appointed commander for the International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, in the north. “It has no basis in reality, according to our investigations.”

The general added that ISAF-North had overall control of the air space in the northern region.

But the persistent rumours that foreign helicopters have been sighted assisting the Taleban in northern Afghanistan were given an unexpected boost in mid-October by Afghan president Hamed Karzai, who told the media that his administration was investigating similar reports that “unknown” helicopters were ferrying the insurgents from Helmand province in the south to Baghlan, Kunduz, and Samangan provinces in the north. 

Captain Tim Dark, of Britain’s Task Force Helmand, was vehement in his reaction.

“The thought that British soldiers could be aiding and abetting the enemy is just rubbish,” he said. “We have had 85 casualties so far this year.”

Engineer Mohammad Omar, governor of Kunduz, refused to comment on the issue, but Enayatullah Enayat, governor of Samangan, also denied that the helicopters were moving the opposition around in Samangan.

“I am in contact with both national and foreign forces in Samangan,” he said. “I have not seen any suspicious helicopters bringing in the Taleban.”

The north has recently witnessed a spike in insurgent activity, particularly in Kunduz and Baghlan. Provinces that were relatively calm even six months ago are experiencing armed attacks, suicide bombings, even outright Taleban control over several districts. 

In a district of Baghlan province, Baghlan-e-Markazi, residents witnessed a battle last month in which they insisted that two foreign helicopters had delivered the Taleban fighters who then attacked their district centre.

“I saw the helicopters with my own eyes,” said Sayed Rafiq from Baghlan-e-Markazi. 
“They landed near the foothills and offloaded dozens of Taleban with turbans, and wrapped in patus (a blanket-type shawl).”

According to numerous media reports, the Taleban attacked the district centre, and the district police chief along with the head of counter-narcotics and a number of soldiers were killed.

Commander Amir Gul district governor of Baghlan-e-Markazi insisted that the Taleban fighters had been delivered by helicopter.

“I do not know to which country the helicopters belonged,” he told IWPR. “But these are the same helicopters that are taking the Taleban from Helmand to Kandahar and from there to the north, especially to Baghlan.” 

According to Amir Gul, the district department of the National Security Directorate had identified the choppers, but it refused to comment.

Baghlan police chief Mohammad Kabir Andarabi said that his department had reported to the central government that foreign helicopters were transporting the Taleban into Baghlan. 

The Baghlan provincial governor, Mohammad Akbar Barikzai, told a news conference on October 21 that his intelligence and security services had discovered that unidentified helicopters were landing at night in some parts of the province.

“We are investigating,” he said.

Rumours have reached the point where US ambassador Karl Eikenberry felt compelled to address them last week at a ceremony honouring the more than 5,500 Afghan police and soldiers who have died during the present war.

The reports were “outrageous and baseless”, said Eikenberry, as reported by McClatchy newspapers. “We would never aid the terrorists that attacked us on September 11, that are killing our soldiers, your soldiers, and innocent Afghan civilians every day.”

Afghan political analysts have woven elaborate theories as to why the foreign forces would be helping the Taleban.

According to Rahim Rahimi, a professor at Balkh University, America and the United Kingdom are trying to keep all of Afghanistan insecure, so that people feel the need for the foreign forces.

“They will try and destabilise the north any way they can,” Rahimi said. “It is a good excuse to expand their presence in the area, to get a grip on the gas and oil in central Asia.”

Fighting Islamic extremists was one way to insert themselves into the area without provoking a fierce reaction from Russia and the Central Asian governments, he added.

Numerous websites have devoted blogs, columns and “investigative reports” to the helicopter rumours; literally everyone has heard the whispers, and many, if not most, believe them. It provides an added reason to suspect and fear the foreign forces, as well as an explanation for the rapid spread of the insurgency throughout the country.

In the end, it may not really matter whether the rumours are ever substantiated. The firm belief that Afghans have in them can determine attitudes and behaviour, further fueling mistrust of the westerners in their midst.

Ahmad Kawoosh is an IWPR journalist based in Mazar-e-Sharif.

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Australian Adept Unveiled World Satanic Control January 3, 2010

Occult Power Running Canadian Parliament? January 20, 2010

However, I witnessed, as a target, another form of occultism in the institution. This came about apparently as a result of my pushing back against what could only be interpreted as corrupt practices in the House.(Editor's Note: It is possible to dismiss Klinck as a disgruntled employee. But I suspect Masons or their surrogates do run many workplaces, and exclude 'outsiders,' i.e. Christians, white males, ethical people, from advancement.)

By Robert Klinck

I worked in the House of Commons for 27 years, about ten for a political party and the final 17 as an editor in Committee Reporting Services (CRS). I found the House to be an increasingly bizarre place. One meets people who seem comfortable with it. It is only natural that, after a certain period of exposure to an environment, the mind becomes persuaded that it comprehends the fundamentals of a system and can function therein. As I never cared about adapting to the prevailing mores or getting ahead, I was not at all interested in acquiring "ins" with "useful" people or figuring out how I could get others to work for me, as extensions of my will. My purpose in leaving my home province of Alberta, newly graduated from university, to go to work in the House was to promote institutional change in society, mainly in the money-distribution system, that would enable people to be free of the "get inside, get ahead" mentality that permits the few to control the many. I was a Christian, and this freeing of the individual I thought to be a fundamental purpose of Christ's having lived among men. I was ambivalent about many things taught by men about Jesus, but to my mind one would not go wrong by promoting policies expanding the scope of personal choice and personal responsibility....

Occultism, defined merely as "secrecy, disclosure or communication only to the initiated", is endemic in the House of Commons. If its denizens want people outside to feel as if they are participants in the action, this is only because it delivers a political advantage.

However, I witnessed, as a target, another form of occultism in the institution. This came about apparently as a result of my pushing back against what could only be interpreted as corrupt practices in the House.

Administrative practices there often seemed laughable--though not necessary in a funny sense. It is impossible for me to believe the amateurishness and abusiveness ... was not surveyed by some more expert, but occult, management, for otherwise the institution surely would simply have come apart.

Early in the 1980s, a French-Canadian medical doctor was brought in to respond to staff concerns that working long days on cathode ray computer terminals might be exposing them to dangerous levels of radiation. At a staff meeting, he said he couldn't comprehend how it was that an institution whose function was the creation of law, [ignored the welfare of] its own personnel. This was the view arrived at by a professional from the outside. Where I and my editor colleagues were concerned, his pronouncement proved to be prescient.

Incidents of threatening or intimidating words and actions [by] managers occurred intermittently in our area. They seemed out of place when applied to the CRS editors, who generally had a strong professional ethic.

One remarkable fact was that managers apparently had a policy of avoiding putting communications in written form...

HIDDEN HAND

It was quite a revelation to discover that this is what goes on behind closed doors--that is, occultly--in the House of Commons in order to ensure that the "right" person gets the position and the "wrong" person does not.

Thereafter I did what I could to redress this effective cancellation of my six years of university education by what was supposed to be my government. Previous experience made it clear that appeal to the Speaker would go nowhere, because the shameless gobbledegook-writing Clerk controlled access to him.

My efforts were all futile. None of the recourse that staff were supposed to have actually worked. They were, in effect, institutional gobbledegook.

As you can imagine, my frustration did not abate. Every night when I retired my plight was on my mind: if the House of Commons could arbitrarily deny the existence of my degrees, then where could I make effective my claim to possess them? I was in a Kafkaesque trap, unable to sleep for more than a few hours at night, lying awake with the incredibility of the words of the Director of Human Resources revolving in my mind. The total non-responsiveness of the institution to arguments involving rationality and fairness was grinding, grinding me down. Over two decades later, the sick, sadistic process continues.

Title variations

Diverse editions or imprints have been published under a variety of titles. Alphabetically, the list of titles used includes:

• The Illuminati Protocols
• It Is Near, At The Door
• The Jewish Peril
• The Non-Extent Manuscript
• Praemonitus Praemunitus
• The Protocols and World Revolution
• 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
• Protocols of the Sages of Zion
• Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion
• Protocols of Zion
• The War Against the Kingship of Christ
• Warrant for Genocide
• Waters Flowing Eastward

The twenty-four protocols

Houghton's 1920 imprint enumerated the twenty-four protocols in that table of contents as follows:

1. The Basic Doctrine—"Right Lies in Might"
2. Economic War and Disorganization Lead to International Government
3. Methods of Conquest
4. The Destruction of Religion by Materialism
5. Despotism and Modern Progress
6. The Acquisition of Land and the Encouragement of Speculation
7. A Prophecy of a World-wide War
8. The Transitional Government
9. The All-embracing Propaganda
10. Abolition of the Constitution; Rise of the Autocracy
11. The Constitution of Autocracy and Universal Rul
12. The Kingdom of the Press and its Control
13. Turning Public Thought from Essentials to Non-Essentials
14. The Destruction of Religion as a Prelude to the Rise of the Jewish God
15. Utilization of Masonry; Heartless Suppression of Enemies
16. The Nullification of Education
17. The Fate of Lawyers and the Clergy
18. The Organization of Disorder
19. Mutual Understanding Between Rulers and People
20. The Financial Program of Destruction and Construction
21. Domestic Loans and Government Credit
22. The Beneficence of Jewish Rule
23. The Inculcation of Obedience
24. The Jewish Ruler

Plagiarism sources and Origin of the plot

Based on evidence repeatedly corroborated by British, German, Ukrainian, Polish and Russian sources over a 75 year period, The Protocols, far from being a document "stolen" from Jews, as it was claimed to be, was in fact deliberately fabricated sometime between 1895 and 1902 by Russian journalist Matvei Golovinski.^{[citation needed]} However, this fact is in dispute, and the exact date of the fabrication is unknown. In a Swiss lawsuit in the late 1930s concerning circulation of the Protocols, "Two of the Russian witnesses gave testimony pointing to the involvement of Pyotr Ivanovich Rachkovsky in the forgery".^[14] Rachkovsky was head of the Paris branch of the Russian secret police.^[15]

The source material for the forgery was a synthesis between Joly's book (below) and a chapter from a work of fiction titled Biarritz, which was written in 1868 by antisemitic German novelist Hermann Goedsche and translated into Russian in 1872.^[16] In creating the Protocols, Golovinski took Joly's novel and changed the plotters from Napoleon III to the Jews, just as Joly had changed the plotters from the Jesuits to Napoleon III in his version of the story. The current belief is the forgery was initiated and authorized by factions of the Russian aristocracy opposed to the political and social reforms initiated by the previous Tsar, (Alexander II). The fabricated document was meant to convince the antisemitic Tsar Nicholas II not to allow additional reforms, since all reforms would play into the hands of this just uncovered "secret Jewish plot". Once the Russian Revolution began in 1905, however, the use of the forgery changed. The same group, now part of the White movement, disseminated the document during their 18 year fight against the Bolsheviks in an attempt to link theRed Army, which had a few Jews in its leadership, to the fictitious conspiracy.

Literary forgery

The forgery contains numerous elements typical of what is known in literature as a "False Document": a document that is deliberately written to fool the reader into believing that what is written is truthful and accurate even though, in actuality, it is not.^[2] It is also one of the best-known and most-discussed examples of literary forgery, with analysis and proof of its fraudulent origin going as far back as 1921.^[17] The forgery is also an early example of "Conspiracy Theory" literature.^[18] Written mainly in the first person plural,^[19] the text embodies generalizations, truisms and platitudes on how to take over the world: take control of the media and the financial institutions, change the traditional social order, etc. It does not contain specifics.

Origin of content

The text borrows or plagiarizes multiple sources.

Maurice Joly

Elements of the text in the Protocols were plagiarized from the 1864 book, Dialogue aux enfers entre Machiavel et Montesquieu (Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu), written by the French satiristMaurice 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^[20]. In the book, Machiavelli describes a series of steps that he intends to take to become ruler of the world.

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.

The Joly book was in turn based on material borrowed from a popular novel of the time by Eugène Sue titled The Mysteries of the People, in which those plotting to rule the world were the Jesuits instead of Napoleon III. Neither the Joly book nor the Sue book mentioned either Jews or Masons.

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.^[21]

"Goedsche was a postal clerk and a spy for the Prussian secret police. He had been forced to leave the postal work due to his part in forging evidence in the prosecution against the Democratic leader Benedict Waldeck in 1849."^[22] Following his dismissal, Goedsche began a career as a conservative columnist, while also producing literary work under the pen name Sir John Retcliffe.^[23] 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".

First Russian language editions

Pavel Krushevan

The book typically consists of 24 to 27 paragraphs or sections titled "Protocols". It has been published and distributed in many forms: manuscript, periodical, booklet, book and via the internet. It was first edited and disseminated to the public in 1903 by Pavel Krushevan, the instigator of the Kishinev pogrom. It was re-published in 1906-1907 by the Union of the Russian People, a part of the pro-Tsarist antisemitic group The Black Hundreds, as a pamphlet titled Enemies of the Human Race. The pamphlet was published specifically to blame the Jews for Russia's defeat in the Russo-Japanese War. It was similarly used in opposition to the Russian Revolution of 1905, the October Revolution (1917), and the peace negotiations at the end of World War I, becoming known worldwide during the 1919-1920 period when it was widely circulated in the West.

Comparison between The Protocols and Maurice Joly's Dialogue in Hell

The Protocols 1–19 closely follow the order of Maurice Joly's The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu 1–17. In some places, the plagiarism is incontrovertible to any observer, trained or not. For example:

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

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.^[24]

In 1921, when Philip Graves published articles in The Times which showed the writers of the Protocols had plagiarized from the Dialogue, it became clear that the Protocols was not an authentic document.^[25]

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 Jews.^{[citation needed]}He had accused the Jews of founding the Bavarian Illuminati.^{[citation 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."^[26] 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-Semitismand 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.^[27]

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."^[28]

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,^[29] 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.

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.^[16] 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.^[15] 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.^[29] Radziwill's account was supported by Russian historian Mikhail Lepekhine, who published his findings in November 1999 in the French newsweekly L'Express.^[30] 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 scholarVadim 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.^[31]

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 (????? ????? - The New Times). The article was written by a famous conservative publicist Mikhail Menshikov as a part of his regular series "Letters to Neighbors" ("?????? ? ???????") and was titled "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.^[32]

Krushevan and Nilus editions

The Protocols were published at the earliest, in serialized form, from August 28 to September 7 (O.S.) 1903, in Znamya, a Saint Petersburg daily newspaper, under Pavel Krushevan. Krushevan had initiated the Kishinev pogrom four months earlier.^[33]

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 theProtocols^{[citation 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 problems^{[citation needed]}.

In 1905, Sergei Nilus published 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.^[34] 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.^[35]

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 andNizier 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 Pyotr Stolypin, the newly appointed chairman of the Council of Ministers, came to the conclusion that the Protocols first appeared in Paris in antisemitic circles around 1897–1898.^[36] 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."^[37] Despite the order, or because of the "good cause", numerous reprints proliferated.^[33]

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 and most of the top ranking revolutionaries were Jews, sparked worldwide interest in the Protocols.

English language imprints

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 Bolshevik manifesto.^[38] 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^[39] in The Times followed German translation and appealed for an inquiry into what it called "uncanny note of prophecy".

Great Britain

The first British 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 the single year of 1920, five editions sold out in England.

United States

In the United States, Henry Ford sponsored the printing of 500,000 copies, and, from 1920 to 1922, published a series of antisemitic articles titled "The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem", in The Dearborn Independent, a newspaper he owned. In 1921, Ford cited 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."^[40] In 1927, however, the courts ordered Ford to retract his publication and apologize; he complied, claiming his assistants had duped him. He remained an admirer of Nazi Germany, however.^[41]

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.^[42]

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

n 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.^[43] 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."^[44]

In the first article of Graves' series, titled "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."^[45] The New York Times reprinted the articles on September 4, 1921.^[46] In the same year, an entire book^[47] 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.

German language publications

The first and "by far the most important"^[48] German translation was by Gottfried Zur Beek (pseudonym of Ludwig Müller von Hausen). It appeared in January 1920 as a part of a larger antisemitic tract^[49] dated 1919. After The Times 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".^[50]

Alfred Rosenberg's 1923 edition^[51] "gave a forgery a huge boost".^[50]

Middle East

In the 1920s, the Protocols occasionally appeared in the Arab polemics linking Zionism and Bolshevism.^{[citation needed]} The first Arabic translations were made from the French by Arab Christians.^{[citation needed]} The first translation was published in Raqib Sahyun, a periodical of the Roman Catholic community of Jerusalem, in 1926.^{[citation needed]} 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.^[52]

The Berne Trial, 1934–1935

In 1934, Dr. Alfred Zander, a Swiss Nazi, published a series of articles accepting the Protocols as fact. This led to a civil lawsuit (what has come to be known as the Berne Trial) in the Amtsgericht (district court) of Berneon October 29, 1934. The plaintiffs (the Swiss Jewish Association and the Jewish Community of Berne) were represented by Georges Brunschvig and Emil Raas. Working on behalf of the defense was German anti-Semitic propagandist Ulrich Fleischhauer. On May 19, 1935, the defendants (Theodore Fischer and Silvio Schnell) were convicted of violating a Bernese statute prohibiting the distribution of "immoral, obscene or brutalizing" texts.^[53] The court 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.^[33]

Vladimir Burtsev, a Russian émigré, 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 defendants appealed the verdict to the Obergericht (Cantonal Supreme Court) of Berne. A panel of three judges acquitted them, holding that the Protocols, while false, did not violate the statute at issue because they were used as a means of political propaganda.^[53] The presiding judge's opinion stated, though, that the forgery of the Protocols was not questionable and expressed regret that the law did not provide adequate protection for Jews from this sort of literature. The court imposed the fees for both trials on the defendants.^[54] This decision gave grounds for later allegations that the appeal court "confirmed authenticity of the Protocols" which is contrary to the facts. A view favorable to the pro-Nazi defendants is reported in an appendix to Leslie Fry's Waters Flowing Eastward.^[55] A more scholarly work on the trial is in a 139 page monograph by Urs Lüthi.

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 Protocolswas also declared to be a forgery during the trial.

Germany

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.^[56]

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, theFrankfurter 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.^[57]

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."^[50] In Norman Cohn's words, it served as the Nazis' "warrant for genocide".

Fascist

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 Preziosiwith an introduction by Julius Evola.

Contemporary imprints

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 ofLibya, 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.^[58]

References

Further reading

• Stephen Eric Bronner: A Rumor About the Jews: Reflections on Antisemitism and the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion (Oxford University Press, 2003) ISBN 0-19-516956-5
• Eisner, Will: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. ISBN 0393060454
• Hagemeister, Michael: "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: Between History and Fiction - Hagemeister 35 (1103)". Retrieved 2009-09-15.
• Hagemeister, Michael. The 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion' and the Myth of a Jewish Conspiracy in Post Soviet Russia, in: Brinks, Jan Herman; Rock, Stella; Timms, Edward (ed.): Nationalist Myths and Modern Media. Contested Identities in the Age of Globalization, London / New York 2006, pp. 243–255.
• Jacobs, Steven Leonard and Weitzman, Mark: Dismantling the Big Lie: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. (2003) ISBN 0-88125-785-0
• Luthi, Urs: Der Mythos von der Weltverschwörung: die Hetze der Schweizer Frontisten gegen Juden und Freimaurer, am Beispiel des Berner Prozesses um die "Protokolle der Weisen von Zion" (Basel: Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1992), ISBN 3719011976 9783719011970, OCLC: 30002662
• Katz, Steven; Landes, Richard (eds.): Reconsidering 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion': 100 Years After the Forgery, New York 2008 (in print)
• Kis, Danilo: The Book Of Kings And Fools in The Encyclopedia of the Dead, 1989 (Faber and Faber)
• Goldberg, Isaac: The so-called "Protocols of the Elders of Zion": a Definitive Exposure of One of the Most Malicious Lies in History (Girard, Kansas, Haldeman-Julius Publications, 1936).
• Stauber, Roni; Webman, Esther (eds.): The Protocols of the Elders of Zion - The One-Hundred Year Myth and Its Impact, Tel Aviv 2008 (in print)
• Timmerman, Kenneth R.: Preachers of Hate: Islam and the War on America (2003), Crown Forum. ISBN 1-4000-4901-6
• Wolf, Lucien: The Myth of the Jewish Menace in World Affairs or, The Truth About the Forged Protocols of the Elders of Zion (New York, The Macmillan company, 1921).
• The truth about "The Protocols" : a literary forgery (1921) The original Times articles exposing the book collected in a contemporary pamphlet.
• Bernstein, Herman (1921): The History of a Lie at Project Gutenberg As page images at archive.org Internet Archive: Details: The history of a lie, "The protocols of the wise men of Zion"; a study Archive.org. Retrieved on 2009-02-01

External links

• Public Statement by The American Jewish Committee, 4p.

A disclaimer published as a result of a conference held in New York City on November 30, 1920.

• Protocols of the Elders of Zion; a fabricated "historic" document;

a report prepared by the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws.

88th Congress, 2d Session (document exhibited at the United States Holocaust Museum). August 6, 1964

• The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: The Truth Story, by Eli Eshed; December 13, 2005

• The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Jewish Virtual Library.

Notable web resources

• What's the story with the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion"?, The Straight Dope, June 30, 2000
• "A Hoax of Hate" The Anti-Defamation League, 2002
• The poisonous Protocols Umberto Eco, The Guardian, August 17, 2002
• Antisemitic Propaganda: "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion", Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, September 2004
• Review by Eli Eshed of The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (graphic novel) by Will Eisner, 2005
• Holocaust Encyclopedia - "A Dangerous Lie", United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, April, 2006
• Exhibition Review of The Antisemitic Hoax That Refuses to Die by Edward Rothstein, The New York Times, April 21, 2006
• Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, Skeptic's Dictionary by Robert Todd Carroll, 2006
• Audio: Talk by Nobel Peace Prize winner, Elie Wiesel, August 13, 2006
• History of the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion - official Freemasonry website
• Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion - Encyclopaedia Britannica