Book Review – A Lie And A Libel – Binjamin W. Segal

The History of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion

One interesting note about this book before I start – the Protocols are available online free and in print for less that $3.00 (yes, I have a copy and have read it) but this book is a scarce item and sells for some $40.00. If you want the truth, you pay a price both in coin and effort. I recently ordered another examination of the Protocols.

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion presents a Jewish plot to take over the world and reduce non-Jews to abject slavery. It has had a large following since its initial publication and enjoys a huge popularity in the Arab world today.

However, it is a forgery. This book is an abridged version of a scholarly text written in 1922. It has been reduced to eliminate illustrations and the many quotations and references. A full 30% of the book is an introduction which fills back in much of the historical background.

A bit of the time line:

1789 – The French Revolution
1791 – Jews are granted equality by the French National Assembly
1848 – General European Revolutions
1894 – The Dreyfuss Trial
1864 – Maurice Joly writes the satire “Dialogue between Machiavelli and Montesquieu in Hell”
1868 – Hermann Goedsche publishes a chapter in a book titled “In the Jewish Cemetery of Prague”
1897 – Likely date of the fabrication of the Protocols by the head of the Russian secret police in Paris
1897 – First Zionist Congress, organized by Theodor Herzl
1903 – Earliest publication of an abbreviated version in a Russian newspaper
1905 –  Publication of a larger version in Russia
1906 – Czar Nicholas II receives a copy
1917 – Publication of an updated version in Russia, now attributed to Theodor Herzl, founder of the Zionist movement
1920 – First English publication, in Henry Ford’s weekly “Dearborn Independent”
1921 – Philip Graves of the London Times makes the connection between the Protocols and Joly’s book.
1927 – Henry Ford retracts and apologizes
1934 – A South African court declared the Protocols a forgery
1937 – A court in Switzerland finds the book a plagiarism of Joly’s book

This author is not the first to point out the similarities between the Protocols and earlier publications. As shown in the side by side comparisons, there are exact parallels between both Joly’s and Goedsche’s books. The author also discusses the political theories put forth in the book and how they related to contemporary beliefs in Euope at the time and after. I find it most interesting that the thing was put together in Paris during the Dreyfuss Affair

Conclusions:

 

  • No doubt that parts of the Protocols were taken from Goedsche’s book
  • No doubt that portions were taken from Joly’s book
  • The Protocols were cobbled together in Paris to be used in Russia to justify the treatment of the Jews
  • Conspiracy theories are easy to put together and very difficult to prove or disapprove
  • There are a lot of gullable people in the world who have no intellectual abilities but who desperately need someone to blame for their problems