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Q: Why does the first sentence of the article say the Protocols is fraudulent? Aren't Misplaced Pages articles supposed to be neutral?
A: Misplaced Pages articles are absolutely required to maintain a neutral point of view. It has long been established that this work is fraudulent; its author(s) plagiarized a work of fiction, changing the original, Gentile characters into the secret leaders of a Jewish conspiracy. That plagiarized, fictional material is presented as though it were fact. That constitutes a literary fraud.
Q: So Misplaced Pages is saying that there was not a secret Jewish conspiracy to rule the world?
A: That is an entirely separate issue from the established fact that the Protocols is fraudulent.
Q: Why not let the reader decide for him- or herself whether the document is fraudulent or not? Doesn't drawing conclusions constitute WP:OR?
A: The article does not draw any conclusions; journalists drew the conclusion in 1921, and numerous scholars have reaffirmed it since then. It is not original research to state that the the Protocols is fraudulent; it is a well-established scholarly fact, as documented and sourced in the article. Numerous similar examples exist throughout Misplaced Pages; for example, the Hitler diaries are demonstrably fake, and the WP article says so—and sources it.
Q: But if the fraud is a well-established fact, why do some groups still assert that the Protocols is a genuine document?
A: It is difficult to answer why anyone still believes that the Protocols is a real document, other than to say that some people have beliefs that are simply immune to facts (Exhibit A: Holocaust deniers). To those whose minds are made up, it makes no difference that the Protocols have been debunked countless times—or that so much incriminating Holocaust evidence survives that a dozen museums can't hold it all.
Q: But you can't disprove the contention that a bunch of Jews got together sometime in the mid-19th century and plotted a conspiracy, can you?
A: As already stated, the conspiracy issue is not relevant to this article. But to answer your question, if one was told that the Moon is a giant ball of Gouda cheese covered with a foot-thick layer of dirt, it would be their responsibility to prove them.
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Availability?
There is a line under the final heading, "contemporary conspiracy theories", that reads as follows:
``The Protocols continue to be widely available around the world, particularly on the Internet, as well as in print in Japan, the Middle East, Asia, and South America.``
Isn't this misleading? The book is widely available worldwide. The phrasing of this sentence can lead the reader to infer that the book is not widely sold in North America or Africa; which either implies that North Americans and Africans are less open to believing that the protocols are genuine, or conversely, that for some reason not mentioned, the peoples of Asia, Europe, and South America are more inclined to bleieve that the screed is real; a statement that is not only unsupported by the sources listed, but unfair.
2603:8000:342:3400:A1A2:3DA3:78:E1E0 (talk) 05:44, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
The implication is that it is more popular in those countries. While that may be true, I would like to see a source that says that. TFD (talk) 06:06, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
Rebutting arguments of validity with an explanatory section
Although the nature of the forgery is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt there are still subsantial numbers of people who believe in the validity of certain arguments presented within the Protocols, regardless of their authenticity, and so it may be desirable to introduce a section for addressing the key arguments found within the Protocols to show that even the arguments themselves, independent of the overall document, lack merit.
This would go a long way to dispelling many of the ancilliary myths that have accumulated over the passage of a century. It would also flesh out the article more and provide a sound basis for further rebuttals. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Engineer of Souls (talk • contribs) 05:17, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
I am not quite sure what you mean by ‘rebuttal is not the purpose of this article’. There clearly are several sections that attempt to do so, for example the section on the Berne Trial features a possible interpretation and counter arguments on the implications of that trial. Perhaps you meant something else? Engineer of Souls (talk) 17:46, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
I'm not quite sure what you mean by "a possible interpretation and counter arguments". What language precisely constitutes a possible interpretation? --jpgordon00:39, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
The purpose of Misplaced Pages is to present facts according to the best available sources and attributed opinions according to the most qualified commentators. If that serves to dispel non-facts, well and good, but it is not our task (and forbidden by policy) to construct our own arguments for or against anything. Not all articles follow this rule, but they are supposed to. In the case of the Protocols, their nature means it isn't even clear what a "rebuttal" would look like. Personally I think that few people, including some academics who have written about them, have actually read the Protocols. Let me open them at random and quote a typical paragraph. From Protocol No. 24: "Certain members of the seed of David will prepare the kings and their heirs, selecting not by right of heritage but by eminent capacities, inducting them into the most secret mysteries of the political into schemes of government, but providing always that none may come to knowledge of the secrets. The object of this mode of action is that all may know that government cannot be entrusted to those who have not been inducted into the secret places of its art." It makes no sense to ask for a "rebuttal" of this, since it is just barely-comprehensible drivel that someone made up. Zero02:06, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
Since I am new to editing Misplaced Pages and you appear to be experienced I will take your word that is the standard practice. If that is the case then I believe the other sections should be edited to remove the appearances of attempted rebuttals. How should we go about that? Engineer of Souls (talk) 15:43, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
Sorry for the late reply, I had assumed I already replied. Just looking at the final paragraph of the Berne Trial Section: “ Evidence presented at the trial, which strongly influenced later accounts up to the present, was that the Protocols were originally written in French by agents of the Tzarist secret police (the Okhrana). However, this version has been questioned by several modern scholars. Michael Hagemeister discovered that the primary witness Alexandre du Chayla had previously written in support of the blood libel, had received four thousand Swiss francs for his testimony, and was secretly doubted even by the plaintiffs. Charles Ruud and Sergei Stepanov concluded that there is no substantial evidence of Okhrana involvement and strong circumstantial evidence against it.”Engineer of Souls (talk) 05:23, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
We can report claims and rebuttals made by reliable sources. We can't make our own rebuttals. The difference is fundamental to Misplaced Pages policy. Zero09:06, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
Communist Manifesto
In the lead is "The political scientist Stephen Bronner described it as 'probably the most influential work of antisemitism ever written ... what the Communist Manifesto is for Marxism, the fictitious Protocols is for antisemitism'." I propose to remove the part after the ellipsis, which is patently ridiculous. Comparing Marx and Engels to the anonymous Protocols author is just embarrassing. Of course my emotions are not a reliable source, but I'll point out that just because something appears in a "reliable source" doesn't mean we are obliged to quote it. I'll go further and question the reliability of the source anyway. On the same page of Bronner's book he writes "It consists of the supposed minutes from twenty-four sessions of a congress held by representatives from the 'twelve tribes of Israel' and led by a Grand Rabbi, whose purpose was to plan the conquest of the world." Actually, the Protocols don't mention twelve tribes, any rabbis at all, or sessions of a congress. Those concepts do appear in the commentary of publishers and others like the Dearborn Independent, but not in the Protocols themselves. (I'm relying on the Marsden edition that is the main source of English versions.) Zero02:13, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
The point of the sentence is perfectly clear, it's straightforward analogy about the centrality of each book to their specific ideology. There's no possible way to confuse it as saying that the Protocols is central to Communism. Let's not write down to our readers. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:17, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
I think we should avoid conversational tone and direct quotes. The book is important to anti-Semitism. We don't need to attribute that intext to someone readers have probably not heard of and provide a comparison. TFD (talk) 03:27, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
agree that it's an odd - and potentially misleading - comparison. More generally, personally, dislike use of quotes in leads and would rather it was removed. Acousmana (talk) 12:14, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
I wouldn't necessarily call such a comparative analogy "patently ridiculous," nor "embarrassing;" BUT I am on board with removing it on other grounds. It's superfluous and unnecessary. I'd agree that the entire quote really does not belong in the lead. Butlerblog (talk) 13:13, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
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