License To Murder: The Enduring Threat of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is the author´s most recent book. Here he traces the history of anti-Semitism. An important read.

“There are a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your realm. Their laws are different from those of every other people´s, and they do not observe the king´s laws; therefore it is not befitting the king to tolerate them." Book of Esther 3:8.

“Among themselves they [Jews} are inflexibly honest and ever ready to shew compassion, though they regard the rest of mankind with all the hatred of enemies.” Tacitus, The Histories Book V

Anti-Semitism existed in one form or another throughout much of human history. This essay examines some historical examples of this particular strain of hate, focusing especially on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the most deceitful, dangerous and pernicious of the libels ever used to incite hatred and violence against the Jewish people.

The myth of an international Jewish conspiracy to control the world as advanced in the Protocols has been exposed by historians, journalists, politicians, police and religious leaders. In November 1937, the Court of Appeals in Berne, Switzerland, concluded: “This scurrilous work contains unheard of and unjustified attacks against Jews and must without reservation be judged to be immoral literature.”1

In the introduction to a 1964 report of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee investigating the Protocols, the senators stated: “Every age and country has had its share of fabricated ‘historic’ documents which have been foisted on an unsuspecting public for some malign purpose…One of the most notorious and most durable of these is the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”2

Yet the Protocols continues to be published in practically every language, in hundreds of editions, in hundreds of millions of copies, and in very compelling videos on the Internet.

The potential danger of the Protocols in shaping public opinion should not be underestimated. When Jews are portrayed as manipulators who seek power over other people’s lives, they come to be perceived as dire threats. The Nazis recognized this phenomenon and exploited it, using the Protocols to rationalize the destruction of European Jewry. It is therefore, particularly disconcerting is that this false and harmful perception of the Jews is embraced even today by leaders of the Arab-Muslim world, where the Protocols continues to be published in vast quantities, and cited in the writings of mainstream academics, who lend credibility and legitimacy to this utter falsehood.

Hatred of Jews

Since the third century B.C., when the Hellenists first advanced the case against the Jewish people, 3 an underlying animosity toward Jews has stayed basically constant, no matter what the grievance. Pagans disliked Jews for being aloof, for refusing to worship their gods, for their practice of marital exclusivity, dietary restrictions and missionizing; Christians accused them of killing Jesus; Enlightenment theorists condemned them for Christianity; populists, who supported the right of the people to fight against the privileged elite, blamed them for modernity; and Islamists depicted and continued to depict them as being in the vanguard of Western ideas and values. 4

During the medieval period, Jews were blamed for causing the Black Death by poisoning Europe’s wells. They were accused of engaging in black magic, witchcraft, and profanation of the host (the Christian sacrament); of scheming to destroy of Christendom, and of committing ritual murder in order to obtain the blood of non-Jews for use in religious rituals.5 This latter accusation became so common that it earned a name of its own—the blood libel.

Blood Libels

Despite having originated among Christians, the blood libel began to appear in the Muslim world during the reign of Ottoman sultan Mehmed the Conqueror (March 30, 1432 – May 3, 1481), and “almost certainly” emanating from the substantial Greek-Christian community that had fallen under the Ottoman regime. During the Byzantine Empire blood libel allegations were common. Under the Ottomans, blood libels were unusual. When they did arise, they were normally denounced by the Ottoman establishment. 6

In the 19th century, however, blood libels reached “epidemic proportions” and occasionally led to outbreaks of violence throughout the empire. The Damascus Affair in 1840 was most likely the first such accusation. It began on February 5, when Father Tomaso, a Capuchin monk, inexplicably disappeared along with his servant. After being falsely arrested and tortured, a Jewish barber pleaded guilty.7

The French consul, Ratti-Menton, persuaded Father Tomaso’s fellow monks to declare that the Jews had killed him in order to use his blood for their religious rituals. The consul also pressured governor Sharif Pasha to imprison a significant number of Jews including those who were influential. After being tortured, one Jewish leader died, another converted to Islam and still others confessed to various spurious charges.8

To justify this and other measures against Jews, the French consul launched a vigorous press campaign in France targeting Jews in Damascus and Jews in general. Only intervention by the British, with the support of other European governments and the U.S., convinced Muhammad ‘Ali Pasha, the Ottoman governor of Egypt, to order the release of the surviving prisoners. The blood libel was ultimately denounced by the Ottoman sultan who condemned the accusation as unfounded and acknowledged the Ottoman’s determination to protect Jews and their property.9

During the remainder of the 19th century and into the 20th, blood libels were widespread. A few examples will illustrate the point: “Aleppo (1810, 1850,1875), Antioch (1826), Damascus (1840, 1848, 1890), Tripoli (1834) Beirut (1862, 1874), Jerusalem (1874), Cairo (1844, 1848, 1890, 1901-1902), Port Said (1903, 1908), Istanbul (1870, 1874), and [even] more often in Balkan and Greek provinces.”10

Though extensive antagonism toward Jews existed in Iran and Morocco, blood libels there were almost nonexistent, probably because of the limited presence of Christians and the absence of European influence. This would come later. 11

Four points are important to understand. First, blood libels were invariably instigated by the Christian community, and frequently promoted in the Greek press. Second, these allegations were at times backed and even prompted by foreign diplomats, principally Greek and French representatives. Third, the Jews could generally rely on Ottoman officials to help them. Lastly, the British and sometimes Prussian and Austrian representatives could be counted on for their active assistance in defending against the libels.12

The libels did not remain within the Christian community. By the early 20th century, some Egyptian Muslim newspapers were using them in anti-Jewish campaigns. They became a frequent subject of Muslim anti-Jewish writings in the Middle East and in other parts of the world. 13

The myth of Jews using blood for sacred purposes distanced them from Christians. Blood libels had invariably emerged during times of anxiety. At the end of the 19th century, charges of ritual murders swept through Eastern Europe. Between the two world wars, there were no fewer than 12 trials involving allegations of ritual murder. Even as late as 1930, Jews in Czechoslovakia were accused of having murdered two children, aged 10 and 11, in Subcarpathian Ruthenia.14

The blood libel continued to endure primarily in the backward areas of Eastern Europe and the Russian Empire. The Russian government exploited this myth to incite pogroms but the accusations eventually lost their potency, especially in secular urban areas. In rural regions the legend persisted through the encouragement of the Catholic Church, whose local priests continued to attest to their veracity throughout the 19th century and well into the 20th century.15

The Wandering Jew

Just as the blood libel led Christians to view the Jew as the “harbinger of evil,” the medieval myth of Ahasverus, the wandering Jew, represented to them the curse that Jesus had placed on the Jewish people. The legendary Ahasverus was said to have rushed Jesus to his crucifixion while denying him consolation or refuge, for which he was cursed to wander the rest of his life without a place to live, loathed and disowned. In Christian folklore, his presence portends horror and emptiness.

The myth of the “wicked Jew” became emblematic of the condemned destiny that Jews were supposed to inflict on themselves and all they encountered. The Jew is the eternal rootless foreigner who never finds his home or develops roots anywhere.

A living Jew was a much greater symbol of enduring Jewish treachery than a dead Judas Iscariot, who the New Testament claims, was one of the twelve Jesus apostles and who betrayed him. Responsibility for the Crucifixion was no longer viewed as personal and pardonable like Judas’s transgression; instead Ahasverus exemplified the collective responsibility intrinsic in the nomadic Jewish nation.

In the 19th century such images were readily acceptable to a culture that celebrated the romantic and the unusual, where the mythical Frankenstein and human vampires captured the imagination of those enthralled with horror tales in which humans were the foil.

The blood libel and concept of the wandering Jew provided convincing explanations for societal problems at a time of industrialization, confusing social change and general upheaval in the same way that they had been used in the past to account for plagues and natural catastrophes. 16

Racial Antisemitism

Racists viewed Jews as a satanic force and the source of practically all evil in the world. Jews were allegedly involved in an eternal conspiracy to control the world using any nefarious methods necessary. Communism and capitalism were said to have been created as a means to manipulate the world and dominate its people. Jews were accused of infiltrating modern society and using their skills to direct the government, the stock exchange, the press, the theater, and literature.17

Slave Trade

Jews also were and are still are accused of having been part of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, of owning slaves, and being involved in creating the Jim Crow laws that mandated racial segregation, sharecropping, the labor movement, unions and general mistreatment of black people. 18 On an entirely different level, some feminists claim that Jews are responsible for patrimony and male domination, since they worship a male God and dethroned the Mother Goddess of the ancients.19

This canard of Jewish involvement in the slave trade has been debunked by a number of historians as well as the Council of the American Historical Association (AHA). Historian Seymour Drescher, a noted expert on slavery and antislavery movements, found "It is unlikely that more than a fraction of 1 percent of the twelve million enslaved and relayed Africans were purchased or sold by Jewish merchants even once.... At no point along the continuum of the slave trade were Jews numerous enough, rich enough, and powerful enough to affect significantly the structure and flow of the slave trade or to diminish the suffering of its African victims. “2

On January 5, 1995, the Council of the AHA passed a policy resolution relating to the alleged role of Jews in the slave trade. It read as follows:

“The AHA deplores any misuse of history that distorts the historical record to demonize or demean a particular racial, ethnic, religious, or cultural group. The Association therefore condemns as false any statement alleging that Jews played a disproportionate role in the exploitation of slave labor or in the Atlantic slave trade.

The claims so misrepresent the historical record, however, that we believe them only to be part of a long anti-Semitic tradition that presents Jews as negative central actors in human history. In such scenarios, Jews are the secret force behind every major social development from capitalism to democracy, every major cataclysm from the Medieval Pandemic of the plague through the French and Russian Revolutions to the collapse of Communism, and now, incredibly, appear for the first time, as the secret force behind slavery. Unfortunately, the media have given the latest charges wide currency, while failing to dismiss them as spurious. “21

Zionism Equals Racism

On November 10, 1975, the 37th anniversary of Kristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass), the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 3379, declaring Zionism to be a form of racism and racial discrimination. The resolution was part of a carefully engineered worldwide campaign to undermine the basic legitimacy of the State of Israel, after her enemies tried and failed to have her expelled from the U.N.22

Branding Israel as a racist state portrays her falsely as a country that freely harms civilians, oppresses minorities and restricts immigration. Thus, Israel’s wars, its response to terrorism and the laws passed by the Knesset must be racist and thus illegitimate. A significant danger today is that this charge has become the new stereotype of Israel in popular culture, the media, literature and daily speech, tainting the Jewish state.23

Just prior to September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., the United Nations held its World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Durban, South Africa (August 31- September 7, 2001). Six thousand delegates from around the world attended what turned out to be an almost exclusively antisemitic and anti- Israel forum that singled out Israel for special reprimand for wrongdoings.24

What distinguished the Durban conference from other assaults on Israel by the U.N. is the particularly virulent language used and the underlying, but fundamental principle, that Israel should not only be censured, but also no longer allowed to exist. Governments that persecute their own citizens, including some that give sanctuary to international terrorists, sought a formal declaration to delegitimize the Jewish state, demonize her people, and initiate a world-wide movement against her right to remain a country at all. Acts of terror against Israel were rationalized, justified and even applauded.25

9/11--September 11, 2001

Not long after the September 11, 2001 attacks that killed close to 3,000 people in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania, rumors began to circulate that 4,000 Jews and Israelis had been warned by the Mossad, Israel’s CIA, to stay home that day because of an impending attack the Mossad itself was about to launch.26

Many Muslims wondered whether the Mossad had infiltrated or even created Muslim terrorist cells to carry out the bombings.27 Less than a month after the attacks, Sheik Muhammad Gemeaha, former leader of the Islamic Cultural Center on East 96th Street in New York, was quoted on an Arabic language website on October 4, that Zionists in control of the country’s air traffic system had aided the hijackers; that the Zionist-controlled media were tarnishing Muslims’ image; that Jews were spreading their corruption; and that Jewish doctors were poisoning Muslim children in American hospitals. 28

The idea of a Jewish 9/11 conspiracy and other theories about Jewish attempts to control world affairs generated an entire cottage industry of books, pamphlets, videotapes, websites and “expert” speakers on the subject. The charge that Jews were behind 9/11 revived, in modern form, the classic old lies about Jewish pursuit of world domination by any means necessary.29

The Israel and Arab Lobbies

In this environment and in view of the impending war in Iraq, that John J. Mearsheimer, professor of political science and co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago, and Stephen M. Walt, professor of international affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, began to examine the Israel lobby, its alleged “profound” influence on United States foreign policy and the contentious issue of dual loyalty.30

Mearsheimer and Walt further argued that the very significant level of American assistance to Israel, both of financial and diplomatic, was not justified on moral grounds or even by strategic need. Instead they theorized that the “largely unconditional” aid was granted primarily because of the “political power of the Israel lobby, a loose coalition of individuals and groups that seek to influence American foreign policy in ways that will benefit Israel.” 31

The professors argued that, beyond trying to persuade the United States to support Israel “more or less unconditionally, the groups and individuals in the lobby played key roles in shaping American foreign policy” with regard to the Arab/Israeli conflict, “the ill- fated” invasion of Iraq, and the “ongoing confrontations” with Iran and Syria. These policies were not only contrary to American interests but “in fact harmful to Israel’s long term interests as well.” 32

In a March 23, 2003 essay in the London Review of Books, Mearsheimer and Walt were careful to disavow any connection between their views and the Protocols: “[T]he Lobby’s activities are not a conspiracy of the sort depicted in tracts like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. For the most part, the individuals and groups that comprise it are only doing what other special interest groups do, but doing it very much better.” 33

Israel’s enemies have embraced this view because it conveniently corresponds to their own conspiratorial fantasies about American Jews controlling U.S. foreign policy.35 Josef Joffe, publisher and editor of the German weekly Der Zeit, calls this form of antisemitism “neo- antisemitism,” a variant lacking genocidal intent, but with historic themes of exploitation, manipulation, avarice, “worship of false gods” and absolute wickedness.

What is new about this form antisemitism? “It is the projection of old fantasies on new targets: Israel and America. The U.S. is an antisemitic fantasy come true, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in living color. ” Isn’t it true that Jews, who owe their primary allegiance to Israel, control the banks, the Pentagon, universities, the media and the Congress? The conspirator this time is not ‘World Jewry,” but Israel. 36

The charge that a small group of Jewish officials working in the American government were secretly responsible for engineering the invasion of Iraq in 2003 added weight to Mearsheimer and Walt’s assertions. Elliot Abrams, Douglas Feith and Paul Wolfowitz, all working in senior Pentagon positions along with Jewish intellectuals and commentators outside the government, including William Kristol, Charles Krauthammer and Robert Kagan, were accused of subversively operating not for the benefit of the U.S., but for Israel and particularly Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon.

Richard Perle, former Assistant Secretary of Defense, was also supposed to have been part of this cabal that conspired to dupe Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and President George W. Bush into attacking Iraq. On this basis, anyone wanting to discredit the Bush Doctrine could “expose” the Iraq invasion for what it really was –-a war initiated by the Jews and fought entirely for the benefit of Israel.

To shield themselves from being labeled antisemites, promoters of this theory use the term “neoconservative” as a euphemism for “Jew, which is what they really mean. Using a subterfuge like neoconservative does not hide the standard Protocols canard that Jews are disloyal citizens and always plotting clandestinely to manipulate the humankind for their own evil goals.

As political scientist Mitchell G. Bard revealed, it is the Arab lobby, especially Saudi Arabia, which is quantifiably the most potent influence on American foreign policy. Working behind the scenes, the lobby ensures that Arab interests—including oil sales to the U.S., military assistance—are given “disproportionate attention” by decision makers in order to influence American foreign policy and “manipulate” public opinion. 38

The Arab lobby, with its deep pockets, long reach and allegiance to theocratic despots, poses an actual danger to American democracy, Bard asserts:

“One of the most important distinguishing characteristics of the Arab lobby is that it has no popular support. While the Israeli lobby has hundreds of thousands of grass root members and public opinion polls consistently reveal a huge gap between support for Israel and the Arab nations/Palestinians, the Arab lobby has almost no foot soldiers or public sympathy. Its most powerful elements tend to be bureaucrats who represent only their personal views or what they believe are their institutional interests, and foreign governments that care only about their national interests, not those of the United States. What they lack in human capital in terms of American advocates, they make up for with almost unlimited resources to try to buy what they usually cannot win on the merits of their arguments." 39

Bard notes that in lobbying for Arab interests “the Saudis have taken a different tact from the Israeli lobby, focusing a top-down rather than bottom-up approach to lobbying.” He cites a proposal written for the Saudis by “hired gun” J. Crawford Cook: “’Saudi Arabia has a need to influence the few that influence the many, rather than the need to influence the many to whom the few must respond.´" 40

The Arab Lobby represents the interests of repressive Arab regimes that frequently stand in opposition to America’s core values and undermine America’s security by supporting terrorism, distorting America’s understanding of the nature of radical Islam and the Middle East by infiltrating extremist viewpoints into the American educational system, and seeking to weaken support for the longstanding friendship between America and Israel. 41

War in Iraq

When the U.S. went to war against Iraq, a number of Americans believed this was because of the key political roles played by American neoconservatives i.e., Jews who instigated the conflict. Jews are also to blamed for past wars, and will be held responsible for future conflicts.42

When Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice-chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, was asked on an African-American talk radio program about the Jews being responsible for the war, he offered a detailed refutation of the charge. Nothing he said persuaded the callers. Then he noted: "I see that the secretary of state is Colin Powell and the national security adviser is Condoleezza Rice. It seems to me that it is more of a black conspiracy." The questions ceased.43

Hoenlein’s exchange illustrates the danger of Mearsheimer and Walt’s claims about Jewish political influence when seen against two thousand years of Jewish and anti-Jewish history. They have acknowledged that any claim appearing to impugn the Jews for policy failures is a highly sensitive issue reminiscent of the conspiracy theories found in the Protocols.44

To counter the lie that Jews seek to control the world, we need to understand the historical context in which the Protocols were written, why they continue to be disseminated and why they still endure even after being so decisively and repeatedly debunked.

The virulent conspiratorial fantasies featured in the Protocols affect even people who aren’t aware that such a book exists due to the commonly held belief in the mythical power of the Jews. Those who have not read the Protocols, but know it exists, are easily convinced of its veracity since it shows everything abhorrent in the world to be simply “the result of an unspeakable Jewish plot.”46

The Protocols shape the way Jews, Israel and the West are viewed by the rest of the world. Given the danger Jews are thought to pose, the only way to combat this ruthless enemy, this “omnipresent Satan in human flesh,” determined to harm and enslave all non-Jews, is to destroy them by any means available—a clear warrant for genocide.47

In his book Warrant for Genocide, which exposes the Protocols for the myth it is, Norman Cohn concludes that this fabrication “is the story of how in twentieth century Europe, a grossly delusional view of the world, based on infantile fears and hatreds, was able to find expression in murder and torture beyond all imagining. It is a case history in collective psychopathology and its deepest implications reach far beyond anti-Semitism and the fate of the Jews.” 48

Apartheid Week may be a step on the way to another warrant.

Footnotes:

1. Hadassa Ben-Itto, The Lie That Wouldn’t Die: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (Portland Oregon: Vallentine Mitchell, 2005), 348.

2. Ibid.354.

3. Peter Schafer, Judeophobia: Attitudes toward the Jews in the Ancient World (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1998):180-195; Martin Goodman, Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007); David Berger, ed., “Anti-Semitism: an Overview,” in History and Hated: The Dimension of Anti-Semitism (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: The Jewish Publication Society, 1986):4; Nesta H. Webster, Secret Societies and Subversive Movements (Palmdale, California: Omni Publications, 1924): 13, 17-18, 370-374.

4. Daniel Pipes, Conspiracy: How the Paranoid Style Flourishes and Where It Come From (New York: Free Press, 1997), 27; Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium (London: Temple Smith, 1970): 76-77, 87-88, 138-139; Jacob Katz, From Prejudice To Destruction: Anti-Semitism, 1700-1933 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1980):140-143. See also Bernard Lewis, Faith and Power: Religion and Politics in the Middle East (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010):26-27; Gavin I. Langmuir, Toward A Definition of Antisemitism (Berkeley, California, University of California Press, 1990); Hyam Maccoby, A Pariah People: The Anthropology of Anti-Semitism ( London: Constable Publishing, 1974); Franklin H. Littell, The Crucifixion of the Jews: The Failure of the Christians to Understand the Jewish Experience (Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 2000).

5. Bernard Lewis, Semites &Anti-Semites (New York: W.W. Norton 1986):23; Robert S. Wistrich, Antisemitism: The Longest Hatred (New York: Schocken Books, 1991): 29-33; Webster, op.cit; 79- 83, 378- 379; Salo W. Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews Second edition volume X (New York: Columbia University Press,):81. Jonathan Frankel, The Damascus Affair “Ritual Murder,” Politics, and the Jews in 1840 (New York: Cambridge University, 1997); David Aers, Culture and History, 1350-1600: Essays on English Communities, Identities and Writings (Detroit, Michigan: Wayne State University Press, 1992):73- 75; Langmuir, op.cit.209-236; Dana E. Katz, The Jew in the Art of the Italian Renaissance (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008): 25-34. Bat Ye’or, Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide (Madison, New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2002): 135-137; Rosemary Radford Reuther, Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism (New York: Seabury Press, 1974; Paul Lawrence Rose, German Question/Jewish Question: Revolutionary Antisemitism from Kant to Wagner (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1990), 8-9.

6. Bernard Lewis, The Jews of Islam (Princeton University Press, 1984), 158.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.156.

9. Ibid.156-157.

10. Ibid.158.

11. Ibid.

12. Ibid.158-159.

13. Ibid.



14. George Mosse, Toward the Final Solution: A History of European Racism (New York: Howard Fertig, 1978): 114; The Jews of Czechoslovakia (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: The Jewish Publication Society, 1968): 152.

15. Mosse, op.cit. 114; Maurice Samuel, Blood Accusation: The Strange History of The Beiliss Case (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966); Mark Vishniak, “Antisemitism in Tsarist Russia, A Study in Government–Fostered Antisemitism,” in Essays On Antisemitism, Koppel S. Pinson, Ed (New York: Conference on Jewish Relations, 1942), 87- 88, 107-109; Joshua Trachtenberg, The Devil And The Jews (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1966), 11-53.)

16. Mosse, op.cit; 114-115; Rose, op.cit. 24-43, 194-2005; Galit Hasa Rokem, “The Wandering Jew-A Jewish Perspective,” members.ngfp.org/courses/hasan-rokem/thewanderingjew.pdf; George K. Anderson, The Legend of the Wandering Jew (Providence, Rhode Island: Brown University Press, 1991), 5-6, 10, 11, 21- 23; Clemens Heni, “German Ideology: Understanding Ahasver, Mammon and Moloch,” Journal for The Study of Antisemitism Vol. 2 Issue 1(2010): 56-63,70.

17. Lewis, Semites &Anti-Semites op.cit.23; Wistrich, op.cit. 33; Katz, op.cit.142; Robert S. Wistrich, “Once Again, Anti-Semitism Without Jews,” Commentary (August 1992), 45-49; Barbara Miller Lane and Leila J. Rupp, Nazi ideology before 1933: A Documentation (Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1978): 47-59.)

18. Letter from Minister Louis Farrakhan to Abraham Foxman (June 24, 2010), FinalCall.com News; Daniel Pipes, “Farrakhan Demands Reparations from Jews,” (July 13, 2010), danielpipes.org; Eli Faber, Jews, Slaves, and the Slave Trade: Setting the Record Straight (New York: New York University Press, 1998); Henry Louis Gates, Jr. “Black Demagogues and Pseudo Scholars,” The New York Times (July 20, 1992): A15.

19. Lewis, Semites &Anti-Semites op.cit.23.

20. Seymour Drescher, “The Jews and the Expansion of Europe to the West, 1450 to 1800,” Paolo Bernardini and Norman Fiering, Eds.(New York: Berghahn Books, 2001), 455; see also, Eli Faber, Jews, Slaves, and the Slave Trade: Setting the Record Straight op.cit.1-10, 143-146; Saul S. Friedman, Jews, and the American Slave Trade (New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1998) ,xiii-xiv, 1-15; Jonathan Schorsch, Jews Blacks in the Early World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004); 52;David Brion Davis, Slavery and Human and Progress (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), 101.)

21. The AHA Council´s action was taken in response to a statement on this issue submitted to the Council by historians David Brion Davis (Yale University) and Seymour Drescher (University of Pittsburgh), noted experts on the history of slavery and antislavery movements. The Council decided to publish the Davis-Drescher statement, along with its own policy resolution, in the March 1995 issue of Perspectives. In addition, the Council´s policy resolution and the Davis-Drescher statement were released to the press on February 8, 1995. The Davis-Drescher statement follows:

During the past few years there have been a number of egregious assaults on the historical record in institutions of higher learning and at educational conferences. These assaults implicate Jews as a dominant group in the Atlantic slave trade and the enslavement of Africans in the New World. The claims so misrepresent the historical record, however, that we believe them only to be part of a long anti- Semitic tradition that presents Jews as negative central actors in human history. In such scenarios, Jews are the secret force behind every major social development from capitalism to democracy, every major cataclysm from the Medieval Pandemic of the plague through the French and Russian Revolutions to the collapse of Communism, and now, incredibly, appear for the first time, as the secret force behind slavery. Unfortunately, the media have given the latest charges wide currency, while failing to dismiss them as spurious. As professional historians, who have closely examined and assessed the empirical evidence, we cannot remain silent while the historical record is so grossly violated.

Atlantic slavery was an intercontinental enterprise extending over nearly four centuries. Ethnically, the participants included Arabs, Berbers, scores of African ethnic groups, Italians, Portuguese, Spaniards, Dutch, Jews, Germans, Swedes, French, English, Danes, white Americans, Native Americans, and even thousands of New World people of African descent who became slaveholding farmers or planters themselves. Since Portugal and Spain barred Jews from their empires, and since, by the 16th century most of the Jews who weren´t either killed or converted in Western Europe had fled east ward, it was impossible for Jews to play more than a marginal role in a vast system that attracted tens of thousands of pagans, Muslims, Catholics, and Protestants. Even in Holland and the Dutch colonies, where Jews were allowed to make their main "contribution" to New World slavery as merchants and planters, they always formed a minority. Similarly, Jews played only a nominal role in the slave system in the American South. Never more than a tiny fraction of the white population, they never formed more than a minuscule proportion of slaveholders. http://www.historians.org/perspectives/issues/1995/9503/9503AHA.CFM

American Historical Association "Statement on the Jews and the Atlantic Slave Trade," (AHA Perspectives, March 1995: 27).

22. Jeane J. Kirkpatrick,” The U.N.’s Day of Infamy,” The Washington Post (November 11, 1985), A23; Harris O. Schoenberg, A Mandate For Terror: The United Nations and the PLO (New York: Shapolsky Publishers, Inc., 1989), 108-125.

23. Ehud Sprinzak, “Anti-Zionism: From Delegitimation to Dehumanization,” Forum-53 (Fall 1984): 7-8.

24. Arch Puddington, “The Wages of Durban,” Commentary (November 2001), 29; Alfred H. Moses “From Durban I to Durban II: Preventing Poisonous Anti-Semitism,” Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, (June 2008) No. 71, 1.

25. Puddington, op.cit, 29.

26. www. adl.org/presrele/asint_13/4346 13.htm; “The 4,000 Jews Rumor,” (April 28, 2009) America.gov; www.snopes.com/rumors/israel.asp; “Abu Ghazaleh, Jordanian Businessman and Vice Chairman of the UN Global Compact: 9/11 was Carried Out by the Taliban, Part of a Zionist Scheme; How Come We Do Not Talk about Catholic Terrorism?” MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 3113 (July 21, 2010).

27. Eric Walberg, “9/11 for dummies,” Al-Ahram Issue no. 862 (September 6-12, 2007) http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/861/in3.htm; Abdel-Moneim Said, “One Sunny Day,” Al-Ahram Issue no. 603 (September 12-18, 2002). http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2002/603/sc22.

28. Daniel J. Wakin, “A Nation Challenged: The Imam; New Head of the Mosque Wants Proof,” The New York Times (November 2, 2001); .Laurie Goodstein, “New York Cleric’s Departure From Mosque Leaves Mystery,” The New York Times (October 23, 2001): B4; Jonathan Rosen, “The Uncomfortable Question of Anti-Semitism,” The New York Times (November 4, 2001); Jeffrey Goldberg, “Behind Mubarak: Egyptian clerics and intellectuals respond to terrorism,” The New Yorker (October 8, 2001).

29. “Conspiracy Theories About Jews and 9/11 Cause Dangerous Mutations in Global Anti-Semitism,” ADL (September 2. 2003); http://www.adl.org/presrele/asint_13/4346_13.htm; Goldberg, op.cit.; Joseph Lelyveld, “All Suicide Bombers Are Not Alike,” The New York Times (October 20, 2001), SM4; see also, Hillel Halkin, “The Return of Anti-Semitism,” Commentary (February 2002): 30-36; Gabriel Schoenfeld, “Israel and the Anti-Semites,” Commentary(June 2002), 13- 20. This conspiratorial message was conveyed in protests at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos in January 2003, when protestors danced around a golden calf. A demonstrator wore a Donald Rumsfeld mask and a yellow Jewish star with the label "Sheriff" on his chest. Another demonstrator wore an Ariel Sharon mask, while a brandishing a club.

German journalist Marcus Hammerschmitt found it “interesting that an ensemble patched together from Carnival costumes (in part, with clear references to animals), the golden calf, a Star of David straight out of Nazi propaganda, and some masks of politicians is so brazenly used to mark the enemy, because the demonstrators assume that the message is already understood: Jewish Americans, or American Jews, worship money and gold and protect it with (animalistic) power, as only they know how. “Simultaneously confusing and clear, both unfathomably deep and barbarically simple, as only authentic credentials of anti- Semitic mania can be, this procession denounces not only the abysmal stupidity of the demonstrators, but also the relationship (seldom clearer) between anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism: The idiots of Davos, who probably still see themselves as leftists, stick onto the person portraying Rumsfeld (in lovely conformity with Iraqi government newspapers) the yellow star and inscribe the star with the word "Sheriff" in order to dispel any last doubts about their idiocy: For them, everything is one and the same, Americans are Jews, all Jews are like Sharon, a Star of David is the same as the star on a sheriff´s badge, the golden calf is a Jewish calf, it´s all the same. The onlookers, so they suspect, will certainly understand just what and who is intended; the main point is that the demon dancing around the idol has a signet." (Andrei S. Markovits, Uncouth Nation: Why Europe Dislikes America (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2007), 159-160.

30. John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007), vii-xi, 7, 13.

31. Ibid. viii.

32. Ibid. 8-9, 12; Robert Dreyfuss, “Israel Lobby Defeats Freeman Appointment,” The Nation (March 10, 2009); Charles Lane, “A Parting Shot That Maligns Obama, Too,” The Washington Post (March 15, 2009); Patrick J. Buchanan, “Of Patriots and Assassins,” Chronicles (March 17, 2009); Noam Waldoks, “Danger looms in ’Continua ‘articles, “Yaleherald.com/archive/xxxii/opinion/12.07.01 (December 7, 2001) .Robert Satloff, “Israel, Asset or Liability,” The Nixon Center (August 2, 2010) .

33. John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, “The Israel Lobby,” London Review of Books vol. 28 no.6. (March 23, 2006).

34. Richard Baehr and Ed Lasky, “Stephen Walt’s War with Israel,” American Thinker (September 6, 2010).

35. Mitchell Bard, The Arab Lobby: The Invisible Alliance The Undermines American Interests In The Middle East (New York: HarperCollins, 2010), x-xi, xix, 17.

36. Josef Joffe, Nations We Love to Hate: Israel, America and the New Antisemitism Posen Papers in Contemporary Antisemitism, No.1, Vidal Sassoon Center for the Study of Antisemitism, (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2004): 1.

37. Norman Podhoretz, “World War IV: How It Started, What It Means, and Why We Have to Win,” Commentary (September 2004): 32-33.

38. Bard op.cit. ), x-xi, xix, 17.

39. Ibid. xiv.

40. Ibid. xviii.

41. Ibid. xiv-xv, 39, 49,287, 331, 340-342; Dore Gold, “Understanding the U.S.-Israel Alliance: An Israeli Response to the Walt-Mearsheimer Claim,” Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs no.556 (September 2, 2007); Stephen Schwartz, Is It Good For the Jews: The Crisis of America’s Israel Lobby (New York: Doubleday 2006); Michael Garson, “Seeds of Anti-Semitism,” Washingtonpost.com (September 21, 2007); Alex Safian, “The Fraudulent Scholarship of Professors Walt and Mearsheimer,” Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (February 11, 2008); Ofira Seliktar, “Ignorance Cannot Be Realistic: A Critique Of The Mearsheimer-Walt Thesis,” MERIA vol. 19 (March 2008); William Kristol, “The Real Israel Lobby, It’s the American people” WeeklyStandard.com vol. 16 no. 05 (October 16, 2010), Alan Dershowitz, The Case Against Israel’s Enemies ( Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wily & Sons,2008),49-79;Abraham H. Foxman, The Deadliest Lies : The Israel Lobby and The Myth of Jewish Control (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

42. A.M. Rosenthal, “Forgive them Not,” The New York Times, (September 14, 1990), A33; Patrick J. Buchanan, “Whose War?” The American Conservative (March 24, 2003), amconmag.com; Stanley Hoffman, “The High and the Mighty,” The American Prospect (January 13, 2003); Robert G. Kaiser, “Bush and Sharon Nearly Identical On Mideast Policy,” (February 9, 2003): 1; WashingtonPost.com; David Brooks, “It’s Back,” The Weekly Standard (February 21, 2003); Eric Alterman, “Can We Talk,” The Nation (April 3, 2003); Jonah Goldberg, “Baghdad Delenda Est, Part Two,” (April 23, 2002) Nationreview.com; Michael Lind, “The Israel Lobby,” Prospect (April 20, 2002) prospectmagazine .co.uk; Lawrence F. Kaplan. “Toxic Talk on War,” The Washington Post (February 18, 2003) A25; Barton Gellman, “Keeping the U.S. First Pentagon Would Preclude a Rival Superpower,” The Washington Post (March 11, 1992):1; Elizabeth drew, “The Neocons in Power The New York Review of Books ( June 12, 2003); Joshua Muravchik, “The Neoconservative Cabal,” Commentary (September 2003);William F. Buckley Jr., “Israel Frenzy: Neocons in the middle” National Review (March 2, 2004); Joe Klein, “Neocons Gone Wild,”Time.com (June 24, 2008); Patrick J. Buchanan, “A Phony Crisis and a Real One,” AntiWar.com (July 15, 2008).

43. Manfred Gerstenfeld, “Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theories in Germany” Jerusalem Jewish Political Studies Review 18: 3-4 Center for Public Affairs (October 2006).

44. Mearsheimer and Walt, op.cit. 12-13.

45. Alan Dershowitz, The Case Against Israel’s Enemies (Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2008), 13; Jacob Weisberg, “The Heresies of Pat Buchanan,” The New Republic (October 22, 1990).

46. Pierre Ferrand, “The Continued Impact of The Protocols,” Midstream (February/March 1998): 17.

47. Ibid.

48. Norman Cohn, Warrant for Genocide: The myth of the Jewish world-conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1967), 268.

49. Ibid; Ron Rosenbaum, “’Second Holocaust’ Roth’s Invention, Isn’t Novelistic,” The New York Observer (April14, 2002).