EoZ book, "Protocols: Exposing Modern Antisemitism," is now for sale!

I am pleased to announce that my book has been released.

Protocols: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (EoZPress, 2022) is based on my essays on the blog over the past several years, somewhat expanded and improved. 

Today we have updated, and equally fictional, versions of the Tsarist forgery about the Elders of Zion. protocols. The new protocols might not take the same written form as the older forgery, but they are imprinted in the minds of modern antisemites. These protocols include ideas such as: the Jewish lobby controls the American government; Israel ethnically cleanses non-Jews from Israel; Zionism is racism; Israel violates international law in myriad ways; and Jews use the Holocaust to justify their own Nazi-like crimes.

In some circles these new protocols have practically become a religion, and the people who believe the new lies are as fanatic as the ones who believe the old ones.

This book defines and exposes modern antisemitism. It shows how the scourge of Jew-hatred is as virulent as it ever was and how modern antisemites hide their hate behind the pretexts of "human rights" and "international law." Protocols identifies and refutes the arguments of today's haters. It is indispensable to understand how the "world's oldest hatred" has returned and how it tries to disguise itself.

It is especially relevant today, as so called "human rights" and "progressive" organizations are twisting the definitions of "racism," "apartheid" and "genocide" specifically against Israel and only Israel - a perfect example of how the Jewish state has replaced the Jewish people as the stated target of the world's oldest hatred.

The book is divided into five parts.

After defining what antisemitism is, I describe different manifestations of the hate that comes from the  Left, the Right, the Arab world and others.

Section 2 looks at what international law really says, not what Israel haters claim. I also show how international law itself has been hijacked by those who hate Israel. Topics include how the media gets basic human rights law wrong in various Gaza conflicts, how NGOs redefine "human shields" to exonerate Hamas, the "right of return" and who is a refugee under international law.

Section 3 looks at how supposed experts and pundits keep getting Israel wrong, and why. It also looks at how anti-Israel thinkers have been against the Abraham Accords, actually rooting for them to fail. 

Section 4 includes my takedowns of the most articulate and clever demonizers of Israel, and how they use propaganda techniques to make their lies harder to recognize and counter. I take on Peter Beinart, Judith Butler, Noura Erakat and more.

Finally, Section 5 reviews how "human rights organizations" have been using their platforms to attack Israel. I show in detail how they use half-truths to give an overall false impression of Israel. It is very relevant today in the wake of Amnesty's and Human Rights Watch's accusations of Israel as guilty of apartheid. I could write an entire book twice as long as this one just taking apart their reports since 2009. (Maybe I should!)

The people I sent advanced copies to - all academics and prestigious authors - have enthusiastically endorsed Protocols. Examples:

Elder strikes again. Incisive, insightful, illuminating, and overall devastating essays on topics of deep concern to Jews and their allies today: antisemitism, anti-Zionism, the left's turn against the Jews, the abuse of "international law," the dishonesty of many Israel-haters, etc. Elder's work is truly substantive, not only displaying greater intellectual breadth and depth than so many of the "academics" who weaponize their work against the world's only Jewish state but decisively shredding their webs of dissimulations and lies. If only there were a committee of Elders of Zi(y)on running the world.... 

 -Andrew Pessin, Professor of Philosophy at Connecticut College, editor, Anti-Zionism on Campus: The University, Free Speech, and BDS

This is a brilliant and forceful book about modern antisemitism—except that it is really an anti-propaganda weapon of war. Our venerable Elder of Zion has written a witty, pithy, and yet comprehensive work; his argumentation and documentation are superb, smart, and based on a knowledge of Judaism, history, warfare, and propaganda. He skewers Jew haters/anti-Zionists with such skill that the reader is prompted to laugh, cry, and/or fly into a rage—and all at the same time. Elder exposes all the “word games” with which journalists confuse legal reality, the Big Lies, about “racism” and “apartheid,” the quadruple standards by which Israel alone is judged by the “academic fraudsters,” and by the NGOs, the UN, the churches, the media, the Palestinian terrorists, and by all the many Masters of the zero sum game. Dare I say, that this work is a Bible of sorts and should immediately be translated into Arabic and distributed all over the Middle East—as well as read into the record, annually, at the United Nations.

- Phyllis Chesler, author, The New Anti-Semitism: The Current Crisis and What We Must Do About It 

 Antisemitism is both the oldest hatred and the newest, and in exposing the lies behind the modern embodiment of the infamous "Protocols", Elder of Ziyon has written the essential reference handbook. In tackling the broad range of hate campaigns, from manipulating the slogans of international law and human rights in the United Nation, to the fake media experts and the NGO anti-Zionist jihad, the New Protocols is a concise and fact-filled response. 

-Professor Gerald Steinberg, NGO Monitor  

Right now the book is available as paperback and e-book. In the near future I hope to have a hardcover edition as well as well as extended distribution beyond Amazon so it can be ordered from all major booksellers.

If you like this site, you will love this book!

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Egypt's third most popular news site: "Herzl wrote the Protocols, and screamed when they were leaked"

El Balad is Egypt's third most popular news site, with about 3 million visits per month.

It has been publishing a series of articles by Najat Abdul Rahman that seem to be concentrating on attacking the Muslim Brotherhood. But it is based on conspiracy theories, and all conspiracy theories lead to Jews.

Last week she mentioned that Egyptian cinema was overrun with immorality, and it seemed to her to be a fulfillment of the ninth Protocol of the Elders of Zion of spreading vice.

This week she delves a little more into the Protocols, and gives a new history of the fraudulent antisemitic document.

According to her, the Protocols were authored by a group that included none other than Theodor Herzl. They were leaked from the top-secret Jewish cabal and made their way to the Pope. Their publication caused Russians to slaughter tens of thousands of Jews, which prompted Herzl to scream about how the documents were stolen from the Jewish "holy of holies" and therefore exposed Jews to pogroms and calamities.

Rahman goes on to describe several of the Protocols, pointing out how the Muslim Brotherhood was following them in Egypt in concert with their Israeli mentors.

There will be more about the Protocols next week. 

This is a mainstream and popular Egyptian newspaper that is spreading pure hate for Jews, today. And there is never a word  of objection from the self-appointed experts on antisemitism from the Left about this daily incitement in Arab media.

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The tenth anniversary of "pinkwashing" and what it teaches about Leftist antisemitic conspiracy theories

It was ten years ago when Sarah Schulman popularized the term "pinkwashing" in an op-ed for the New York Times. (I found one earlier mention, by Jasbir Puar in The Guardian in 2010.)

At the time, I noted how steeped in hate is the absurd theory that Israeli pride in its support for gay rights is merely a front to whitewash its alleged crimes. 

There is another angle, though, that points to a commonality between antisemitism from the Left and the Right: they are both often rooted in conspiracy theories.

After all, the idea that the Israeli government, Zionist organizations, gay Zionist Americans and liberal Zionist Jews all work together to push a narrative of Israeli tolerance of gays is nothing but a huge conspiracy theory. 

Not all antisemitism is based on conspiracy theory, but a great deal of it is. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the blood libel, the idea that Jews are behind the Plague as well as Covid, Holocaust denial, Jews controlling Hollywood - all of these are familiar antisemitic conspiracy theories of the Right. 

But the "Israel Lobby," charges of pinkwashing, Zionist control of the media, the ADL is behind US police brutality, Zionists are "silencing" pro-Palestinian voices, Israel engages in "Jewish supremacism" - these are all conspiracy theories of the Left that are no less bigoted.

Jovan Byford is an expert on conspiracy theories and wrote a major book on the topic, "Conspiracy Theories: A Critical Introduction" (2011.) He dedicates a chapter to antisemitic conspiracy theories and segues from analyzing conspiracy theory antisemitism on the Right to that of the Left:, arguing that the conspiratorial aspect is exactly how one can distinguish between legitimate criticism of Israel and antisemitism:

Recent years have witnessed an increased awareness of a seemingly new brand of conspiratorial antisemitism propagated mainly by sections of the left. The phenomenon, which has become known as ‘new antisemitism’, or anti-Zionism, is defined by the fact that the central object of disparagement and prejudice are not Jews as such, but Israel as the Jewish state (Chesler, 2003, Iganski and Kosmin, 2003, Foxman, 2004, Taguieff, 2004). Rather than viewing Israel as a country whose policies and actions, like that of any other, can (and indeed should be) criticised on merit, sections of the political left have come to view it as the source of uniquely harmful influence in the world. Israel’s actions, and even its very existence, are believed to be an expression of the uniquely iniquitous nationalist ideology (Zionism), which is considered to be comparable to Nazism: it is racist, imperialist, expansionist and tyrannical. Transgressions of the Israeli state – from human rights violations to military actions that are deemed, by critics, to be disproportionate – are seen as inherently more sinister than those committed by any other state in history, with the exception of Nazi Germany. Furthermore, Israel’s policies are seen as sufficiently egregious to undermine its basic legitimacy: exponents of ‘new antisemitism’ often go as far as to call for the dismantlement of Israel. This makes Israel the only member of the United Nations whose very existence is routinely brought into question and Jews the only people whose right to self-determination, it is argued, should be retrospectively revoked. Crucially, as David Cesarani (2004: 72) notes, the definitive crossing of the boundary between criticism of Israel and antisemitism occurs at the point where the former becomes articulated in language typically associated with antisemitism, that is, when it ‘intentionally or unintentionally uses or echoes long-established anti-Jewish discourse, characterising Jews inside Israel or in the Jewish diaspora as singularly wealthy, powerful, conspiratorial, treacherous and malign.’ In other words, when it is embellished with the motifs of a Jewish conspiracy.

The chapter section is an excellent summary of the new antisemitism. Here Byford shows how Leftist antisemites will even note the similarity between their theories and traditional antisemitism - as a way to defend themselves from being considered antisemites!

Accounts of ‘the Lobby’ are so blatantly conspiratorial that their exponents on occasions candidly admit that what they are alleging is essentially a Jewish plot, one that resembles the classic antisemitic conspiracy theory. Writing in the magazine Tikkun, Paul Buhle (2003) writes, for example, that when one looks at the power of the pro-Israel lobby ‘it is almost as if the anti-Semitic Protocols of Zion, successfully fought for a century, have suddenly returned with an industrial sized grain of truth’. The British historian Tony Judt has also admitted that claims about the sinister power of the ‘Israel lobby’ sound ‘an awful lot like, you know, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the conspiratorial theory of the Zionist Occupational Government and so on’ but that, while ‘unfortunate’, this cannot be helped as this is ‘just how it is’ (cited in Hirsh, 2007: 86). Such comparisons are rhetorically significant, because writers use the notoriety of the Protocols to accentuate the sinister influence of ‘the Lobby’, while at the same time forestalling any accusations of antisemitism by implying that, despite the resemblances, their claims are distinguishable from those of the right. As Tony Judt put it, ‘you can’t help it if idiots [on the right], once every 24 hours, with their stopped political clock are on the same time as you’ (ibid.). Thus, a distinction is drawn between disreputable (and false) conspiracy theories of the right and the accounts of real conspiracies uncovered by the left.

Leftist antisemites, sensitive to charges of racism, add a new layer to their conspiracy theory to forestall the idea that they are antisemitic:

The ‘slippage from criticism of American foreign policy to wild eyed conspiracy theory’ (Fine, 2006) apparent in the discussions of ‘the Lobby’ should not occur so easily, however. Left-wing thought is marked by long tradition of opposition to racism and a standing commitment to equality and social justice, which means that its contemporary exponents should be resistant to ideas traditionally peddled by their ideological opponents. And yet, as we have seen, among critics of ‘the Lobby’, this sensitivity is often lacking. This is at least in part because their ideological position is sustained by another key feature of the conspiracy theory, namely its essential irrefutability. As noted in Chapter 2, conspiratorial explanatory logic comprises a number of interpretative devices that makes the conspiracy theory immune to conventional cannons of proof and testing (e.g. by transforming disconfirming evidence into proof of the conspiracy). These devices protect the conspiracy theorist not just from challenges related to evidence or proof, but also from those made on moral grounds. Moral criticism, just like disconfirming evidence, can be attributed to the conspiracy and thus rendered invalid. This is an essential feature of the writing on ‘the Lobby’. The very reason why the idea of a Jewish plot should be resisted – namely antisemitism – is perceived as a distraction, a label deliberately manufactured, manipulated and used by ‘the Lobby’ for silencing opponents, de-legitimising criticism of Israel and controlling public opinion. Thus, antisemitism ceases to be a danger to be avoided by all those discussing the sensitive issue of Jewish influence in politics, and is perceived, instead, exclusively as a weapon of Zionist self-legitimisation. This stance towards antisemitism goes hand in hand with the so-called Holocaust industry argument, popularised by Norman Finkelstein (2000). According to Finkelstein and his followers, the Holocaust has been exploited and instrumentalised by powerful Jews to justify Israel’s aggression against the Palestinians and build a taboo around antisemitism (see Laqueur, 2006, Cesarani, 2004). The effect of this stance on antisemitism and the Holocaust, but also its underlying psychological function, is to undermine any sympathy for Jews that would normally foster resistance to antisemitic motifs. In other words, by persuading their audience, and, importantly, also themselves, that the moral standpoint from which their arguments can be criticised is consciously imposed by ‘the Lobby’ – and therefore an essential part of its sinister method – writers can pre-empt, destabilise and render unfounded any criticism of their ideological position. This places ‘the Lobby’ theory of America’s foreign policy beyond moral reproach, removes the taboo surrounding antisemitism, reinforces the believers’ conviction in the absolute truth of their views and inoculates them from any awareness of where the boundaries lie between acceptable and unacceptable opinion. The belief that everything, including the definition of what is acceptable, is manipulated by the sinister lobby not only shields the anti-Zionist worldview from the effects of disconfirming evidence, but also makes it vulnerable to the malign influence of motifs and stereotypes rooted in the conspiracy tradition.

This is brilliant analysis, describing how the Left uses the additional conspiracy theory that Jews are defining antisemitism to discredit critics as a way to make modern antisemitism palatable - and immune to criticism itself!

The entire campaign against the IHRA definition of antisemitism is based on the idea that the Zionist establishment is conspiring to define antisemitism to allow Israel to act in sinister ways.

When "criticism of Israel" crosses the line into the idea that Israelis - the most argumentative, contentious people around - unite to embrace evil, that is no longer criticism of Israel.  It is Jew-hatred, and it is something that Jews recognize quite well.

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Russia declares 1973 "anti-Zionist" film "extremist" (video)

From BBC Russian:

The Russian Ministry of Justice has included in the list of extremist materials the Soviet propaganda film "Secret and Explicit. Aims and Deeds of the Zionists." The film was shot in the 1970s on the wave of "anti-Zionism" in the USSR, but it never made it to the wide screen because of the fears of the Soviet authorities.

The decision to ban the film was made by the Syktyvkar City Court in July this year, but it was only on November 8 that it was officially included in the list of extremist materials.

The documentary black and white tape was released in 1973 by the Central Documentary Film Studio. 

[T]he script for the film was approved at the highest level - in the international department of the Central Committee of the CPSU, a whole group of reputable consultants from the USSR Academy of Sciences, the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the KGB were assigned to work on the picture. The filmmakers were even allowed to travel to Europe to collect material.

The well-known historian of the Soviet era Yevgeny Dobrenko wrote: "This film was the Soviet version of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion ," so odious and wild even by Soviet standards that it was assessed as anti-Semitic and banned even by the KGB and the Central Committee."

I found a version of the film where it appears that someone added clips from the 1990s (Bill Clinton, Ehud Barak). But it seems to include the original complete film.

I don't understand Russian but the antisemitism is obvious - scenes of Jews praying, shots of Jewish books that are almost certainly being claimed to demean non-Jews, accusations that Jews collaborated with Nazis on the Holocaust. 

 

Leftist anti-Zionism started off indistinguishable from classic antisemitism. After missteps like this film, the Left learned to hide their Jew-hate a little better, always insisting that they weren't anti-Jew but only anti-Israel. 

That doesn't change the fact that the anti-Zionists are still motivated by the same hate for Jews that they always were. Hiding it better doesn't make that any less true.

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Anti-semitism in anti-Israel protests? I'm shocked! (ElderToon)

From the socialist Worker's Liberty site:

I told the man that racism had no place on the demonstration, that his presence harmed the Palestinian cause, and that the document he was promoting was a racist hoax. In the course of what was probably a not a very coherent tirade from me, I mentioned that I was Jewish.

“Well, you're blinded by your bias because you're a Jew”, he said. “Only Jews make the arguments you're making.”

Thereafter the “discussion” became more heated, and several onlookers were drawn in. Several people backed me up, but several defended him.

Their defences ranged from, “he's opposing Zionists, not Jews”, to “he's not racist, Zionism is racist!”, to the perhaps more honest “Jews are the problem. If you're a Jew, you're racist, you're what we're demonstrating against.” One man, topless, but wearing a balaclava, said “fuck off, unless you want your fucking head kicked in.”

I walked away, angry and upset. I returned a short while later to find the placard-holder embracing two young men, before leaving. When me and some comrades challenged them, they told us he wasn't anti-Semitic, merely anti-Zionist. “Look, it says 'Zion'”, not 'Jews'. 'Zion' means Zionists”, one helpfully informed us.

...In 2009, during Operation Cast Lead, some Workers' Liberty members in Sheffield (three of us, incidentally, Jewish) took placards on a demonstration against the assault which, amongst other things, said “No to IDF, no to Hamas.” As it happens, I now think, for various reasons, that our slogan was misjudged. But no-one attempted to engage us in debate or discussion about it; we were simply screamed at, called (variously) “scabs” and “Zionists”, and told we must immediately leave the demo (we didn't). Our placards were ripped out of our hands and torn to pieces.

I don't make the comparison in order to express a wish that what happened to us in 2009 had happened to him in 2014. I wouldn't particularly advocate physically destroying the man's placard, or attempting to physically drive him and his supporters off the demonstration. But a movement in which “no to IDF, no to Hamas” is considered beyond the pale even for debate and discussion, and must be violently confronted, but a placard promoting The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion can be carried without challenge, even for a moment, and its carrier find numerous defenders, needs to change its political culture.

The author still downplays leftist antisemitism as an aberration despite his own experiences. Perhaps he should read this report from one of those horrible right-wingers about what is happening across  Europe nowadays:

People who are "visibly Jewish," people wearing identifiably Jewish dress, have found themselves targeted for abuse. Demonstrators at the biggest central London march assaulted and verbally abused a Jewish woman who had expressed her support for Israel, calling her a "Jew Zionist" among other things, before stealing her mobile phone. In North London, a rabbi was abused by a group of 'youths' who shouted "F*** the Zionists," "F*** the Jews" and "Allah Akhbar."

All of this is mild compared to what has been going on across the English Channel in France. In suburbs and parts of central Paris the violence being perpetrated against the Jewish community culminated in the disturbing spectacle of Parisian Jews barricaded in a synagogue by a crowd of young North Africans seemingly intent on violence. When the police failed to turn up in any numbers, the Jews fought for themselves. These were not all "Jewish vigilantes" as some of the press disturbingly reported -- Jews in their 40s and 50s fighting their way through a mob.

Since then, the French authorities have banned -- as French authorities have the right to do -- some other planned "pro-Palestinian" protests. But the bans seem not to have worked. "Youths," as the media are prone to title the rioters, who mainly come from the suburbs of Paris and other cities, have taken to the streets, anyhow. There are videos of them smashing up pavements in order to get chunks of asphalt to hurl at police. A Paris suburb with a large Jewish -- not Israeli, just Jewish -- population has been a particular focus of protestors. In some video footage, protestors have been shown attacking police cars and assaulting public and private property. The French authorities are clearly trying to get a handle on the protests, but to a considerable extent, events have slipped from their control.

Similar scenes have been seen across the continent. In the Netherlands -- fresh from witnessing a pro-ISIS rally in Amsterdam -- there have been serious incidents at protests. There have been anti-Semitic chants, and the home of the Chief Rabbi in the Netherlands has been attacked twice in one week. In Austria, a soccer game involving an Israeli team had to be called off after Palestinian demonstrators broke onto the pitch. The stands had people waving anti-Israel banners and Turkish flags. But once they were on the pitch, the protestors assaulted the Israeli players, doing flying kicks at them and then further kicking and punching them. Some of the Israeli players fought back and the game was halted.

Most disturbing of all, perhaps, have been events in Germany. During pro-Palestinian protests in Berlin and other German cities, there were chants of "Death to the Jews" and "Gas the Jews." The president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Dieter Graumann, described some of the demonstrations as "an explosion of evil and violence-prone hatred of Jews. Never in our lives did we believe it possible that antisemitism of the nastiest and most primitive kind would be chanted on the streets of Germany."

And it is in Germany that such sentiments have met their most appropriate public and political opposition. There, at least, the nature of these protests has not been glossed over. On the contrary there has been a suitable soul-racking over this. How could such a cry have gone up in this country, of all countries? The major German magazine, Bild, has run a cover with the headline, "Raise your voice: Never again Jew Hatred!" The cover is dotted with famous figures in German public life from the President and Chancellor Merkel to other political and public figures. The montage sends out a powerful message. The question is, of course, whether that is enough.

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"Gas the Jews"

On Sunday, an IDF reserves captain spoke in Holland, and before he even said a word three protesters threw shoes at him. The venue for the speech had to be changed because the original hotel received threats about hosting it, and decided in that typically European way that anyone who threatens free speech is far more important than free speech itself. But one detail in the story that got overlooked by most media reporting it:

According to Edelheit, "The Palestinian organizations learned of the change, and then a rush of emails pressured the second hotel as well. There was a protest of some 50 people outside the hotel screaming, 'Gas the Jews'."

This has become a fashionable statement among the "pro-Palestinian" crowd. Even as they insist that they are not anti-semitic, the number of times that this or similar phrases have popped up at protests is increasing. In Germany last month:

The mass anti-Israel demonstrations in Germany in January were largely organized and supported by Arab, Turkish and Palestinian groups. Left Party politicians in the Bundestag urged their members to attend the rallies, which turned into displays of Jew and Israel hatred, including calls to "gas the Jews," "Jews out of Germany," "Kill, kill Jews," and "Kill, kill Israelis."

Also in Holland:

A court in Utrecht convicted two men on Friday for chanting the slogan 'Gas the Jews' (Joden aan het gas).

The 30-year-old Ibrahim I. was sentenced to 30 hours of community service plus a suspended three-week prison sentence. The 25-year-old Mohamed B. was fined 400 euros.

In Sweden:

Police in Sweden are on heightened alert following a spike in anti-Semitic attacks around the country in the wake of Israel's campaign against Gaza-based Hamas militants. A wooden staircase at a Jewish center in Helsingborg in southern Sweden was set alight twice in three days in the past week in a blaze police suspect was caused by flammable liquid spread over the stairs, according to the Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) newspaper.

In Denmark:

A Muslim saying, "We want to kill all the Jews, all the Jews should be slain, they have no right to exist!" (at 1:10); and chants of "Khaybar, Khaybar, ya Yahoud, jaish Muhammad sawfa yaoud” -- that is, “Khaybar, Khaybar, O Jews, the army of Muhammad will return.” That chant is a reference to a celebrated incident in the life of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, when he massacred a town full of Jewish farmers.

Mere Rhetoric has many more.

There is no question that the impetus for the less politically-correct versions of pure anti-semitism in Europe comes mostly from Muslims, but it is being not only tolerated but encouraged by the European Left. (Not that we haven't seen similar feelings in the far-Left on the other side of the Atlantic.) Certainly there have been few public calls from the European Left against Muslim anti-semitism - we have yet to see any articles from them saying "yeah, we passionately hate Zionism and Israel and consider the Jewish state to be uniquely evil in the annals of history, but calling for Jews to be gassed crosses the line." The self-described liberals cannot seem to find a problem with public calls for genocide.

Perhaps they feel that to criticize them would be an unacceptable threat to free speech. Similar to the free speech exercised by those who call up hotels to threaten them with violence for hosting, um, a speech.

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