In the early 20th century, the Tsarist Russian secret police distilled the essence of traditional anti-Semitic conspiracy theories into a document, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, purporting to be the master plan for The Jews to take over the world. It has been a staple of anti-Semitism ever since – and also a red flag: for surprisingly often, as soon as casual anti-Semitism takes that additional step beyond snide remarks about ‘a shitty little country’ and crosses the line into out-and-out evil, you will find the Protocols.
The Protocols are cited in the Charter of Hamas, as one of the justifications for their objective of driving the Jews out of Israel through an uncompromising and unrelenting campaign of mass murder.
The European Union still draws a distinction between various branches of Hamas. Thus the EU's pretence of not being complicit in mass murder hinges on the idea that there is some sort of firewall within Hamas, such that when a murderer asks for funds, the administrator says “sorry, the Jew-killing will have to wait until more jihad-enabled funds come in; all the millions currently in the account are earmarked for arms dumps hospitals and suicide-bomber indoctrination factories primary schools”. And the murderer says “oh, OK then”.
In a speech at his Party's annual assembly last week, Prime
Minister Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia gave one of his notorious diatribes, touching on anti-Western, anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic themes. Party officials at the assembly handed out copies of The International Jew, the anti-Semitic tract written by Henry Ford (yes, the Henry Ford – though he later renounced it),
which contains – guess what? – a version of the Protocols. To the best of our knowledge, no Western leader has criticized either the speech or the reading matter provided.
Former New York Mayor Rudi Giuliani was once again at the right place at the right time doing the right thing this week as he led the US delegation to an international conference on anti-Semitism. That such a conference took place at all is a very good sign. That many of the nations participated unwillingly is not so good.
