The British academic bookstore Blackwell's had a few copies of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion on sale earlier on Tuesday. One of them had this description of the book:
The Protocols of the (Learned) Elders of Zion is one of the most controversial books ever written. Since its publication this small book has aroused great controversy and bitter debate. It is a source of acrimony and vituperation because of its contents and its supposed authors and because it purports to describe an ancient and enduring agenda for World Empire. Moreover, the "unknown authors" of the Protocols leave no doubt in mind of the reader of their great misanthropy and hatred for the ordinary man and a rancorous enmity for God and Christ. Furthermore, that the supposed authors affect to be Jews leads the unwary reader to conclude that the Protocols are indeed a Jewish design for World Empire and so illustrates superbly the secret rancour of the Jew for the Gentile and his nations. But gentle reader, those who understand such things conclude otherwise. That there is an ancient and enduring rancour for the Gentile by certain Jews there is no doubt. Similarly, that certain Jews have always and still do work to establish Jewish hegemony over the world is not doubted by informed researchers. But what is usually not understood is that Organised Jewry -the leadership of this Jewish ambition- has been in the thrall of a small cabal of men who have for many generations used the race of Jews for a far more sinister aim than merely the establishment of a One World Government under Jewry.Many people complained to Blackwell's, which issued an apology:
There have been a large number of comments about the description that has accompanied a particular book.We have refrained from commenting publicly because we did not wish to give the oxygen of publicity to this title, but given the volume of comments on this situation, we feel that we must now comment.The description that appeared for this book was an automatic feed from the publisher. It was neither written nor endorsed by us. With over eighteen million books on our website, it is standard practice in online bookselling to list books with the book descriptions provided by the book publishers, as we are unable to physically check this many records. However, as soon as this was brought to our attention, we replaced the description with one which expressed our complete and utter condemnation of the contents:"Not all documents that change the world are good — some are despicable, and leave hatred and bigotry in their wake. Such is the case with [this book]”Our belief is that books should be made available — even hateful books — so that they can be studied and understood with a view to ensuring such despicable views cannot gain credence in the future. We cannot state in clearer terms that we believe that the contents of this book are abhorrent, we also believe steadfastly that books should be available and not pushed underground.To defeat evil, you need to shine a bright spotlight on it in the first place, and expose it for what it is, and we believe that that is achieved by facilitating knowledge and discussion rather than quashing it. We have always stood up for lack of censorship within bookselling and continue to maintain this should be the case.In the face of the unprecedented reaction to this ongoing situation, we have removed these books from sale, which of course may well attract further criticism. We believe that we have explained clearly and with honesty and integrity why this was not a course of action we wished to take, but we have now taken it.We are sorry for any hurt that has been caused, but we hope that our explanation provides a full, unexpurgated explanation of this entire situation. We will not be commenting further on this matter.
Despite what they said, at this time Blackwell's has removed all versions of the Protocols and similar books.
The explanation makes sense. The identical blurb can be seen in Booktopia (Australia), Fishpond (New Zealand), while other bookstores managed to catch the blurb and delete it.
EBay's version includes glowing reviews from antisemites.
I believe in free speech and that the bookstores have the right to sell the Protocols to any idiot who doesn't know how to get it for free over the Internet. However, when they publish this blurb, and "reviews" from Jew-hating troglodytes, they change from booksellers into publishers - and as such they are responsible for any hate that is published on their websites unless they print a disclaimer.
(h/t Tanya Gold)
