The Protocols and Jewish conspiracy theories are still promoted by certain neo-Nazi groups in Europe and in many Arab lands, even in the early 21st century.

In 1958 the Egyptian President Nasser recommended [the Protocols] to an eminent Indian journalist as essential reading for an understanding of global politics. In 1974 King Faisal of Saudi Arabia sent copies as gifts to the French Foreign Minister Michel Jobert and the Italian Foreign Minister Aldo Moro. Libyan President Qaddafi usually gives it as a present to his guests. -- Roberto Finzi, p61-62, Anti-Semitism

A number of recent Western visitors to Egypt and other Arabic nations since the September 11th Attacks have drawn fresh attention to the continued sales and promotion of the Protocols, as well as seemingly related conspiracy theories about Sep 11 itself. Thus "Mossad carried it out to turn the West against us" and "Thousands of Jews working in the WTC were warned and didn't turn up to work that day." (Other examples are linked to in Arab Anti-Semitism Today and The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion.)

I say "seemingly related" because during a very friendly lunch with my old Palestinian colleague Iyad Issa, someone whose personal integrity I greatly trust, around November 2001, Iyad claimed that the idea of the Israelis carrying out the attacks as a provocation had come to him quite independently a few days before we met, without him having heard this anywhere else. Iyad and his family have suffered greatly in Gaza - though others have suffered more again. Yet I was astounded that this high Conspiracy Probability for 9-11 emerged unbidden from him. I made it clear at the time I couldn't possibly see it like that. We're still firm friends but there certainly is a Worldview Gulf between us in this area that I would like to understand better. -- Richard Drake

James Billington claims that the idea of such a theory only originated during the Napoleonic era. In fact he passes on in a footnote this claim from Herr von Biebenstein:

J. Rogalla von Biebenstein,Die These von der Verschwörung 1776-1945, Bern/Frankfurt, 1976, provides the best account of the successive stages in the codification of the theory of an Illuminist conspiracy (95-137), and shows the transfer of this aroused suspicion to the Jews, beginning with the Napoleonic period (161-3). -- footnote 43, p538, Fire In The Minds Of Men

This evolution from conspiracy theories focused on Illuminism seems highly significant. Imperfectly Perceived Reality is clearly very dangerous in such areas.

The page The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion tells some of the sad story of such theories and their relationship to the rise of Hitler in the 20th century. The recent book Anti-Semitism by Roberto Finzi covers the same ground in more detail, refuting the Protocols and the theory lying behind them using the following key witnesses

• The Cossack Alexandre du Chayla, a contemporary in 1902 of Nilus, the "discoverer" of the Protocols at St Petersburg Theological Academy. du Chayla reported that he at once recognized the influence of various previous wild, masonic-Jewish theories and suggested the Tsarist secret police in Paris as authors, due to the abysmal French!
• The Times correspondent in Constantinople in 1921, whose scepticism led to a tardy re-evalation by that august publication, which had publicised the Protocols as genuine in May 1920
• (In the bibliography) The Jewish historian Norman Cohn, who wrote the definitive study Warrant For Genocide in 1967

Refutations - origins of Bolshevism

As possible explanation and motivation for the success of the Protocols and the theory of Jewish conspiracy behind the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, Finzi mentions

• An unidentified Jewish newspaper in Britain in 1919 which suggested that the theory was motivated by European governments and security services wanting people to turn against the Bolsheviks (and thus using anti-semitism to achieve this)
• The "historian A. Sutton" who "confirmed the substance of that explanantion fifty five years later" -- p67, Anti-Semitism

In fact Sutton's explanation is almost 180 degrees in the other direction from the Jewish newspaper's. But I immediately knew what Finzi meant, which appendix of which book published by A. Sutton in 1974 he was refering to. Not many other readers would have been much enlightened though, given that Finzi neglected to mention Wall Street And The Bolshevik Revolution then or in the bibliography. But, from past experience, even in 1999 a fellow economic historian was being brave to draw even that oblique amount of attention to the academic non-person AntonySutton. He's entirely right that Sutton blows the theory sky high. But what might such an explosion cost the Western financial and foreign policy establishment if many, including the victims, were able to take in the extent of the dummy sold? Is this the reason that, even with millions of Jewish lives, past and present, on the line, full historical reference still cannot be given?

Here's what Finzi in his love for his own people undoubtedly wanted you to read but didn't think he could be more explicit about: WSBR appendix_02.htm. The general issue of Who Cites Sutton is well worth looking at some time. I predict the stats will be changing in the next few years. -- Richard Drake