Understanding the Enduring Appeal of the Theory of the Jewish Conspiracy

That great classic of anti-Semitic literature, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, has found its way into the news recently: last week, an FBI Twitter account, apparently without any malicious intent, tweeted a link to excerpts of the work in its archives; a few days ago, a speaker was removed from the roster at the Republican National Convention when it was found out that she had disseminated a series of anti-Semitic tweets that cited the Protocols as evidence. Why, asks Steven J. Zipperstein, has this book—published in Russia in 1903, but purporting to have been written by a leader of a Jewish conspiracy for world domination—remained so popular when other works of anti-Semitism have deservedly faded into oblivion:

The book sells widely in Turkey, Syria, and Japan; remains a staple of Russian Orthodox bookshops; and in 2002, was the subject of a long-running Egyptian television series. It is widely available on eBay and on the Barnes & Noble website. The British charity Oxfam sold it on its site until March of this year. When asked by the New York Times in 2018 to name the books at her bedside, Alice Walker listed David Icke’s And the Truth Will Set You Free, a contemporary summary of the Protocols.

For [its] devotees, the Protocols’ capacity to explain the world remains so resonant that the COVID-19 pandemic has now been blamed on the machinations of the ubiquitous Jewish elders. The Protocols has survived, more so than any other text of its kind, . . . not because its ideas are particularly original, and certainly not because they’re correct. It has done so for the simple reason that the Protocols is, curiously enough, a compelling read. Conspiracy theories are many things, but most of all, they’re narratives—understandable, comprehensive stories about how the world works, complete with the arcs and the rhythms of any other epic tale of heroes and villains. Part of what makes certain ones endure is how well they unfurl that story.

The Protocols’ voice is cool, patronizing, vile; the voice of someone who is ready to perform any task, however dastardly, in the march toward world domination. This, then, is no secondary source, unlike other familiar, formulaic expressions of anti-Semitism, but a chance to overhear a consequential Jewish leader plotting the fate of the world. This narrative immediacy is the difference between a newspaper article and a novel, between remove and urgency. The Protocols is not, purportedly, mere narration of a diabolical plot—it’s evidence of one. It projects authority by obscuring its authorship.

Read more at Atlantic

More about: Alice Walker, Anti-Semitism, Protocols of the Elders of Zion, U.S. Politics

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF