The story starts in Russia, a country with a long history of anti-Semitism, with a journalist named Matvei Golovinski. (Others suggest the conspiracy theory was cooked up by the Russian secret police.)
Protocols a Forgery and also Plagiarized
The text first appeared in Russia in 1897 where it was privately published and much of it was lifted from earlier publications. The Skeptic’s Dictionary says “It is copied from a nineteenth century novel by Hermann Goedsche (“Biarritz”, 1868) and claims that a secret Jewish cabal is plotting to take over the world.”
But, Goedsche lifted the story from a French satirist and lawyer named Maurice Joly. In 1864, Joly wrote a work of fiction entitled “Dialogues in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu,” in which he attacked Napoleon III’s ambitions to rule the world.
Through these and other versions the text morphed into the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” first published in Russia in 1905 for general public consumption.
Claim of the Protocols Entirely False
The claim is that the Protocols form a secret document that was discovered and that details a master plan to take over the world. The Holocaust Encyclopedia describes them as “24 chapters, or protocols, allegedly minutes from meetings of Jewish leaders, the Protocols ‘describes’ the ‘secret plans’ of Jews to rule the world by manipulating the economy, controlling the media, and fostering religious conflict.”
The first English translation was done by Victor E. Marsden in 1920; the book sold out five editions in one year in England alone. Hitler referred to the Protocols in his book "Mein Kampf " and used their existence as “proof” of the need to deal with what he called the “Jewish problem.”
Elders of Zion Document has plenty of Believers
Scholars worldwide have proven the Protocols to be pure anti-Semitic bunkum. Apart from a few fringe of racists who cling to their delusions, the Protocols are now seen as a fraud in the West.
But, the Protocols were swallowed whole in the past as factual by some. Henry Ford, a well-known anti-Semite, said in February 1921: “The only statement I care to make about the Protocols is that they fit in with what is going on. They are 16-years-old, and they have fitted the world situation up to this time. They fit it now.”
Protocols Stir Hate in the Middle East
While the Protocols have been totally discredited in the West the situation in the Middle East is different.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, the Protocols “are perennial bestsellers in the Middle East. The seriousness with which they appear to be taken in the Middle East may be partly explained by the number of prominent Muslims who have endorsed them. [Egyptian President] Nasser endorsed the Protocols in 1958, as did President Sadat, President Arif of Iraq, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, Colonel Qaddafi of Libya, and others.”
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