Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Jayjg (talk | contribs) at 22:28, 31 May 2005 (→POV comment: relevance?). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

minor questions of correct number for pronoun

Are we top posting here or bottom posting? Anyway, are the Protocols an 'It' or a 'They'? I'd be inclined to consider them a they, but most of the editing seems to think otherwise. ?? PS Sam Spade, nice edit, kept the point I was trying to make, in a NPOV type of way. Gzuckier 19:19, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

False Document

There is a link to 'false document' here, but the meaning of the false document article appears to relate to artistic creations, rather than to forgeries of this sort.

We could either:

• remove the link
• change the 'false document' article to reflect the fact that there are non-artistic forgeries
• change the wording to 'forgery'

-- The Anome

Precisely my point.

Also, is it actually agreed by all that it is false? Do there exist rabid anti-semites who believe it's true? If so, then we should say something to the effect that most historians and other sane :-) people believe it's false, but there are a small handful of anti-semites who believe it's true. That is important information, if true, and must be stated fairly if the article is to cohere with the neutral point of view. --LMS

Arab newspapers insist that the protocols are real. The reality of them are even taught in some high schools in the Arab world as "proof" of the evil nature of Jews". Many Japanese citizens believe that the Protocols are genuine. A small number of Japanese professors and other professionals have even written books about them in recent years, which have shot to the top of Japanese book best-seller lists. Most of these books are flatly anti-Semitic. However, and bizarrely, some of these books aren't anti-Semitic in any way that yoo are I would understand the term, because some of them teach that "The Jews use the protocols to try and conquer the world...but we Japanese can adopt these Jewish techniques so that we too can be as powerful as the Jews, or more so!" That is to say, some of these books are literally written as "Self-Help" books for businessmen, who seem to admire the "international Jewish conspiracy", and wish to emulate it. I have a detailed article on this that I can e-mail you if anyone is interested it. A good study of this fascinating and complex topic is "Jews in the Japanese Mind: The History and Uses of a Cultural Stereotype", by David G. Goodman and Masnori Miyazawa, The Free Press, 1995.

RK, if you want to mail it to me I would be interested. My email address is sj_kissane at yahoo.com -- SJK

I would be interested in this article as well. TLB

The subject page is SO NOT neutral point of view. It is almost like it was written with the single purpose of discrediting these writings.

I agree we should state that they are believed by some to be true, but this being an encyclopedia, we can still say pretty flatly that they're false. The fact that they're believed to be true by some nutcases doesn't mean we need to make a disclaimer of "believed to be false by almost everyone sane," any more than we need to add disclaimers of "NASA claims, and most historians believe, that the US landed on the moon in 1969, but there are some who claim that the moon landing was fake" to articles on space exploration. -- Delirium

Can someone add a brief summary about what kinds of accusations the document specifically makes? Maybe in a bullet list or something? user:J.J.

Delirium, I disagree with you - since your parallel between the belief that NASA moon landing was staged, and the belief that the Protocols are for real - is wrong.

In the Islamic world - roughly a quarter of the world's population - the belief that the Protocols are for real is not restricted to a very small minority of nuts. It is restricted to a small minority of nuts in the West, but the Misplaced Pages is supposed to represent the views of the entire world, not just of the West - the NPOV should not be Western.

In case of NASA sending people to the moon, a small minority of nuts worldwide believes this - so from NPOV view, it seems reasonable to view it as fact. -- Michael V.

Are we putting everything up for a vote?

Michael V's comment suggests that if three billion people think something is true, then we can't say otherwise. That is nonsense. The book is demonstrably false, not to mention pernicious, and its is POV to say otherwise. Italo Svevo

You are missing my point. If three billion people think something is true, than the fact that they think it is true must be mentioned. On the other hand, there is a limit to how many minority opinions can be covered. For example, if there is a lone psychiatric patient somewhere who thinks that the Protocols were writen by the Evil Gummy Bears Who Live in His Brain, mentioning his views in this article would be pointless. There is an incredible number of very small minority opinions on every conceivable topic. Trying to mention as many of them as possible would be ridiculous. -- Michael V.

Then why don't you demonstrate it?

This is an excellent article, and admirably defends the concept of historical truth against attempts to deny that this concept has any meaning. The fact that ten people somewhere think the world is flat does not prevent us from laying that it is (almost) round. The Protocols are a forgery, and any self-respecting encyclopaedia needs to say so. Having said that, the last paragraph seems a little over-optimistic, and in fact contradicts the preceeding text. It is clear that in fact many people think the Protocols are genuine. Adam 03:13, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Good point on last paragraph. In addition, it has an editorial tone implying that open information (the underpinnings of this site) is to be feared and controlled rather than combatted on merit. It almost seems to mock the idea that anyone who reads something in a library should value his/her privacy. Anyone revising it might tweak the spin there. Chris Rodgers 00:18, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)

"While few people currently believe the Protocols to be genuine, many people now have the opportunity to assuage their curiosity about the Protocols due to the Internet. This raises issues of whether the Internet as it stands is an unalloyed good. Previously, few people were willing to risk getting on government lists by loaning the book from the library, or ordering it through a book-shop through fear of being labelled anti-Semitic."
Is this to say that someone who favors the free flow of information is an anti-semite? That any topic that risks offending a Jewish person shouldn't be discussed? That Jewish lobby groups are more deserving of freedom of speech than anyone else? I never thought of myself as an anti-semite but the more I see statements like these, the more I'm starting to wonder...

It's interesting how every publication in the bibliography was either written by a Jewish author or published by a Jewish organization.

Yes. Jews are a lot more interested in Jews being slandered than are the non-Jews. Wow. This is such an incredible surprise. Must be part of The Conspiracy (TM). --Michael V.

Three comments above question the last paragraph, though I don't necessarily agree with the reasons. I deleted it just because it is argumentative and has stuff like "government lists" that are meaningless without explanation. If there is a story about these "lists", then that would be a fine addition. --Zero 11:46, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I noticed that this page is listed as a copyright violation. It would be a shame to lose all the edits since the alleged violation, so I did a little research. Apparently the text in question is much older than the URL given. The oldest instance I could find was back in 1993; see . Apparently the text was first posted to alt.conspiracy by Danny Keren, although it was originally written by Prof. Saul Wallach of Bar-Ilan University. Also see Talk:Protocols of the Elders of Zion (without the "The") for more early edit history. Wmahan. 17:01, 2004 Apr 21 (UTC)

Update: a more authoritative link: . Wmahan. 18:40, 2004 Apr 21 (UTC)

Tracking down copyrights can be as much of a problem as the contents of some of these articles. Although much of the repetion on the net leads back to Keren there is no assurance that his newsgroup posting is not itself a violation of copyright. There is a Saul Wallach who is Rabbi of a messianic congregation in Gig Harbor, WA, but I don't think that he is the same person.

A question of transliteration from Hebrew comes up. And the name seems to be more correctly Shaul Wallach, and his e-mail address as recently as 2000 was <wallach@mail.biu.ac.il>. The site http://shamash.org/holocaust/denial/protocols.txt seems to take the text back to 1989. Eclecticology 20:06, 2004 Apr 21 (UTC)

I emailed that address asking Prof. Wallach if he is the author, and if so if we may have permission to distribute his work under the terms of the GFDL. If we do not get permission, I don't think we really have much of a choice but to start rewriting from scratch. Especially given that a print edition of Misplaced Pages is planned, the perils of knowingly continuing to publish something that later may result in a copyright infringement claim are too great to simply ignore. --Delirium 07:09, May 1, 2004 (UTC)

I am going to put a notice on Misplaced Pages:Copyright problems that there is an effort to obtain permission and that the status will be revisited by the end of May. Please update the Copyright problems page as soon as you have a resolution. - Tεxτurε 17:08, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

I have moved the text in the original article that does not appear to be disputed, as well as User:66.124.226.61's start of a rewrite, to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion/Temp. I added a link to the version of Prof. Wallach's essay that Eclecticology found. I think that will provide a decent basis for an article even if we delete the disputed text. Wmahan. 19:15, 2004 May 20 (UTC)

Recast the opening at "Temp"

This is the first time I got a good look at this article. Considering its importance in world politics, it was hardly adequate and an insult to the reader seeking knowledge to beat around the bush with a concept like "well lots of guys in the West think it's fake but most others think its real." -- Cecropia | Talk 15:47, 23 May 2004 (UTC)

I've replaced the original with the one that was at /Temp. Angela. 09:59, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Who Wrote it?

One theory is that Lucien Wolf who claimed to have "discovered" the truth in 1920 was the author. He certainly seemed to know more about it than anyone else. Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg is said to have brought a copy to the attention of Hitler and cohorts.

Did Wolf and Rosenberg know each other?

Is there any substance at all to this "theory" apart from pure speculation? Who proposed it? I think it ought to be deleted from the article. --Zero 14:13, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

POV?

Anon User:213.137.118.222 tagged this article POV without any explanation. Unless we see a good reason, I think it would be safe to remove the tag soon. ←Humus sapiens←Talk 09:27, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Are y'all sure its "The Wandering Jew"?

I seem to remember from other articles on the protocols that Joly took most of his material from the last chapter of "Les mysteres du peuple", another book by Eugene Sue. Umberto Eco wrote an article on the protocols in wich he says as much. I still have that article somewhere, as soon as i've found it I will get back to you

--Ceesos 20:41, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Links to sources?

Could somebody please provide links to the source documents from which The Protocols were forged?

I'm not sure they can be found on-line. Jayjg 15:37, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Taught in schools in Arab countries?

I have seen frequent statements that the Protocols are often taught in schools in Arab countries as fact.

Can anyone provide specific references to this - other than some people merely asserting this. Michael Voytinsky 19:46, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Please try ]. ←Humus sapiens←Talk 10:42, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

These are secret resolutions, most probably of the aforementioned Basel congress. They were discovered in the nineteenth century. The Jews tried to deny them, but there was ample evidence proving their authenticity and that they were issued by the elders of Zion. The Protocols can be summarized in the following points:

1. Upsetting the foundations of the world's present society and its systems, in order to enable Zionism to have a monopoly of world government.

2. Eliminating nationalities and religions, especially the Christian nations.

3. Striving to increase corruption among the present regimes in Europe, as Zionism believes in their corruption and collapse.

4. Controlling the media of publication, propaganda and the press, using gold for stirring up disturbances, seducing people by means of lust and spreading wantonness.

The cogent proof of the authenticity of these resolutions, as well as of the hellish Jewish schemes included therein, is the carrying out of many of those schemes, intrigues and conspiracies that are found in them. Anyone who reads them - and they were published in the nineteenth century - grasps today to what extent much of what is found there has been realized (See: The Danger of World Jewry, by Abdullah al-Tall, pp. 140-141 ).

from 'Hadith and Islamic Culture', Grade 10, (2001) pp. 103-104 Bear in mind that Saudi Arabia is our great ally, a moderate Islamic Arabic nation. Gzuckier 19:15, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This Article Has Problems

This article starts off strong, and exactly how it should start out --

"The Protocols of the (Learned) Elders of Zion is a fraudulent document..."

And the text at the beginning is strong.

But it devolves into ridiculously opinionated political commentary that lacks proper context.

I.e.

/

An article in the Egyptian state-owned newspaper al-Akhbar on February 3, 2002 stated:

"All the evils that currently affect the world are the doings of Zionism. This is not surprising, because the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which were established by their wise men more than a century ago, are proceeding according to a meticulous and precise plan and time schedule, and they are proof that even though they are a minority, their goal is to rule the world and the entire human race."

/

At this point the article is clearly taking shots at Arab governments and newspapers, and would mislead someone to believe that the Protocols (or similar conspiracy) is universally taken on faith by, say, journalists in the Arab world -- which is complete nonsense.

Where is the link to this article? Was it an "article" or was it an editorial? Was it representative of the presentation of the rest of the paper? Is that paper representative of the rest of the papers in Egypt? Is Egypt representative of the Middle East? What alternative views are available in that region from intellectuals and scholars?

The goal of this Misplaced Pages entry should be to create an honest presentation, not to further crude stereotypes (UNBELIEVABLE IDIOCY!) One result of this will hopefully be that a certain degree of hatred can be dispelled. We are not trying to create new lies and new reasons for people to hate each other. Misplaced Pages is not MEMRI or MEF or some other such ultra-opinionated propaganda group.

The entire Contemporary use section is a piece of junk. It belongs in a political magazine, not in the Misplaced Pages. Unless/until the proper context and background can be provided, that section should be deleted.

There are valid points raised, but they are raised in a vacuum and for purposes of political propaganda rather than illumination.

--70.18.99.228 21:35, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, what is the "proper context and background" that would make these references more acceptable? Jayjg 21:59, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

The author has provided only examples that demonstrate that journalists are conspiracy theorists or buy into the Protocols. There are many intelligent journalists in the Middle East with a balanced perspective. This is propaganda because it leads people to believe that Arab governments force all journalists to repeat this swill. This is what propagandists repeat when they are trying to build support for overthrowing Arab governments. And it's totally unbalanced. (Does this perspective exist? Yes. But the common implication that it is the only perspective is flat out wrong.)

POV comment

I added the above comment, but let me say this too.

"The book is demonstrably false, not to mention pernicious, and its is POV to say otherwise."

However, it's impossible to escape POV completely. A 1900 Misplaced Pages article would have stated authoritatively that Indians are savages. An article from 1800 would have authoritatively stated that leeches are one of the better headache remedies. And while from a scientific perspective, the Protocols are bunk, there are reasons why many people find aspects to them that they can relate to (particularly in places like Palestine). Thus it's important not to simply dismiss these populations as raving lunatics. It's POV to suggest that because the Protocols is bunk, believing any part of them is absurd or makes someone a moron. This is a document with some cultural and historical importance. Henry Ford said that he didn't know for sure whether the document was true, but that it paralleled many of his own observations. THIS is why the document is significant. Even as a forgery, it was created to parallel ALREADY EXISTING beliefs about Jews in certain circles. It was a response to these very real beliefs, and so while it itself may be a forgery, its contents are still relevant to study objectively rather than to just dismiss as useless nonsense.

In case there's any confusion, I'm not suggesting there's a Jewish conspiracy. However, people would not embrace the document if they did not believe it matched some of their own life experiences. And certainly Jewish people have been disproportionately successful in certain sectors, like banking and entertainment -- and even federal government. Certainly the Israelis have the upper-hand over the Palestinians. And certainly the Jewish state was only a sparkle in the eyes of some Jewish people for about two millennia, at which point Zionists arrived and proceded to do some things that locals had not invited them to do. And while the Israelis are far from the only party responsible for unpleasantness in the Middle East, they are indeed responsible for (at the least) their share of unpleasantness.

There are INDEED Jewish people in the US government who are adamantly pro-Israel. Douglas Feith and Paul Wolfowitz are indeed pro-Israel hardliners, and prior to the Iraq war were two of the top three officials at the Pentagon and two of the most instrumental people pressing for an invasion of Iraq. Many of the original advocates for the war were Jewish, like Richard Perle and William Kristol. Kristol has said that "Paul showed real courage in advancing this agenda that he thought was so important for the country. The truth is there weren't many of us. You know, this 'great powerful neo-conservative conspiracy.' There were about eight people. Half of them were not well-liked by the Bush administration, like me. It's a very impressive thing that he did."

(Elsewhere in that piece in the Jerusalem Post: "It was Wolfowitz who led a small group of neo-conservative thinkers in developing a rationale for the war..." Thomas Friedman, a Jewish writer for the New York Times, famously said, "I could give you the names of 25 people (all of whom are at this moment within a five-block radius of this office) who, if you had exiled them to a desert island a year and a half ago, the Iraq war would not have happened." Ari Shavit, writing for the Israeli daily Haaretz, wrote about "a small group of 25 or 30 neoconservatives, almost all of them Jewish, almost all of them intellectuals (a partial list: Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, William Kristol, Eliot Abrams, Charles Krauthammer), people who are mutual friends and cultivate one another and are convinced that political ideas are a major driving force of history.")

These guys DID INDEED formulate much of their agenda at hard-line pro-Israel think tanks like the Project for the New American Century.

There IS INDEED an uncomfortable alliance between some of these advocates and a certain portion of the religious right in America, who believe that the presence of a Biblical Israel is necessary in order for the apocalypse to unfold properly (these are sometimes referred to as "Christian Zionists").

When we dismiss people who buy into a Jewish Conspiracy as raving idiots, it's important to provide the full backdrop.

This is a POV that is not at all well-represented in this article. And it is indeed highly relevant. The goal is not to make one POV look intelligent and all others look stupid. The goal is to provide enough information so that the reader can fully comprehend the topic at hand.

What does this have to do with the Protocols themselves? Jayjg 22:28, 31 May 2005 (UTC)