First published in Russian in 1903, and purporting to be a record of a secret meeting of a Jewish cabal gathered to plot world domination, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion has been translated into many languages and inspired Jew haters of every stripe. Its Middle Eastern admirers have included Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser and Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal, and it was just recently photographed on display in the lobby of the Central Council of Palestinians in Germany. Yigal Carmon surveys the book’s continued influence:
Like it did for the Nazis, the Protocols justifies the goal of annihilating the Jews. For the Arabs, it would also justify annihilating the state of Israel. It resolves two cognitive dissonances afflicting Arab and Muslim societies. First, it explains why the Arabs have failed in their struggle against Israel: were it not for the global Jewish-Zionist conspiracy, Israel would have been wiped out long ago. Second, it explains why Muslim societies are unable to compete with the West—the Jewish conspiracy employs various means to leave them in the dust.
In the Islamic Republic of Iran, this conspiratorial worldview is at the foundation of the Islamic Revolution’s ideology, according to which the Jew has been transformed from an impure and miserable entity to an all-powerful satanic figure that opposes the Islamic world and is at the root of all of the Islamic world’s predicaments. According to the Iranian regime’s ideology, it is necessary to fight the Jews the same way that one fights cancer, and to wipe them and their satanic influence off the face of the earth.
The Protocols have been referred to in schoolbooks, such as the History of the Modern and Contemporary World, Grade 10, which was issued by the Palestinian Authority. The Protocols are also commonly referred to by Islamic clerics and scholars, they appear in media reports, and they have been dramatized in recent years in family-oriented Ramadan TV shows such as al-Shatat and Knight Without a Horse.
Read more on MEMRI: https://www.memri.org/reports/protocols-elders-zion-arab-and-muslim-world-%E2%80%93-past-and-present