the market
in silver ore - kuttenbergerThe Elders of Zion and the Masters
of Discourse
By Israel Shamir
The troublesome
concept of the Hidden Hand or the Elders of Zion is
superfluous and unnecessary.
"The latest controversy to involve the Arab World
concerns a TV program
A Rider without a Horse that started airing on Wednesday,
Nov. 5th, the first
day of the holy month of Ramadan on several Arab
satellite channels. The
source of the controversy is that the program is partly
based on "The
Protocols of the Elders of Zion", the old forgery
originating in Tsarist
Russia", writes Qais S. Saleh, a business consultant
from Ramallah on the
excellent website CounterPunch[1]. Expectedly, Saleh
condemns the broadcast
and warns the Palestinians and the Arabs to stay away
from the bad old wolf
of anti-Semitism, or, as he put it, "the trend of
importation of
anti-Semitic bigotry".
Saleh's view coincides with that of Michael Hoffman, on
whose site the
Protocols can be found. Hoffman thinks Arabs have no need
to importanti-Semitic arguments from the old and far-away
sources, provided they havea fresh round-the-clock local
source: actual behaviour of the Jewish stateand its
Jewish citizens. It is much more convincing than old
tales.
However, the Protocols are still with us and still
entertain minds.Recently, the leading Italian novelist
and thinker Umberto Eco contributedhis opinion on the
subject to the Guardian[2]. Eco
"explains" the popular
feelings towards the Jews: "They . engaged in trade
and lent money - hence the resentment towards them as
"intellectuals". In my limited knowledge, it is
not the intellectuals who lend money, but bankers and
loan sharks, while true intellectuals find their
behaviour repulsive. Probably Eco has a different
definition of 'intellectual' up his sleeve. "The
ill-famed Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion were a
rehash of serialised fictional material, and prove their
own unreliability, since it is hardly credible that
"the baddies" would reveal their fell purposes
so blatantly" - concludes Eco.
One can forgive a business consultant from Ramallah, but
Umberto Eco could notice that his definition would fit
some other books, for instance,Gargantua and Pantagruel,
an even older forgery, pretending to be a real chronicle
of the Giants family, and built on 'serialised fictional
material' . Don Quixote, Pickwick's Club, 1984 of
Orwell - all these books "pretend" to describe
real events to the same extent. They are 'forgeries', as
they are ascribed to somebody else: Don Quixote to Sid
Ahmed Benengeli[3], and Gargantua to Maitre Alcofribas
Nasier[4].
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are best described as
'pseudo-epigrapha', rather than 'fake'. They belong to
the same category as Tomas Friedman's Letter of President
Clinton to Mubarak. After all, pseudo-epigraphic genre is
an old and venerable one. It is even better to consider
the Protocols, 'a political pamphlet'.
In this essay, we shall attempt to find out why the
Protocols refuse to lie down and die. We shall stay clear
from the usual question, "who wrote it".  Its real author remains unknown,
and it is difficult to imagine this person, for the
Protocols are a literary palimpsest. In the days of yore,
a scribe would write his composition on a piece of old
parchment, previously removing an older text. The erasure
was rarely total, and a reader was treated to an
integrated version of the Golden Ass and Fioretti of St
Francis. In the Protocols, there are layers of old and
even older stories, and it precludes meaningful quest for
ultimate creator. Every text should be treated on its
own merits, disregarding the question of authorship.
Although, Jorge Luis Borges wrote that the author is an
important part of a text. Indeed, if we would know the
Protocols contain real blueprint of some Jewish elites,
we would have our answer ready in minutes. But Protocols
were published in the end of 19th-beginning of 20th
century "as found", as apocrypha. They became a
great bestseller and still stay there, though in some
countries (notably the Soviet Union), mere possession of
the text was punishable by death.
The Anonymous author of the Protocols describes a
master-plan for vast restructuring of society, creation
of a new oligarchy and subjugation of millions. The final
product is not too different from the one described in a
contemporary piece of writing, The Iron Heel by Jack
London, the great radical from Oakland, California.
However, London expected harsh cracking down, while
Anonym's way to subjugation leads through Machiavellian
manipulations and mind control a la Orwell's 1984.
(Orwell's homage to the Protocols is even more striking
as it is rarely noticed).
The difficulty of the Protocols is in an uncanny
dissonance between its uncouth language and deep social
and religious thought. It is a rude parody-like rendering
of a satanic, subtle and well-thought out plan, wrote the
Nobel Prise winning novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn[5] in
his (written in 1966 and published in 2001) analysis of
the Protocols.
"The Protocols . show a blueprint of a social
system. Its design is well above abilities of an ordinary
mind, including that of its publisher. It is a dynamic
process of two stages, of destabilization, increasing
freedom and liberalism, which is terminated in social
cataclysm, and on the second stage, new hierarchical
restructuring of society takes place. It is more
complicated than a nuclear bomb. It could be a stolen and
distorted plan designed by a mind of genius. Its putrid
style of an anti-Semitic grubby brochure [intentionally]
obscures the great strength of thought and insight"
.
Solzhenitsyn is aware of faults of the Protocols.
"Its style is that of a filthy leaflet, the powerful
line of thought is broken and fragmented, mixed up with
ill-smelling incantations and psychological blunders. The
system described is not necessarily connected with the
Jews; it could be purely Masonic or whatever; while its
strongly anti-Semitic current is not an organic part of
the design".
Solzhenitsyn makes a textual experiment, removes words
"Jews", "Goyim" and
"conspiracy" and finds many disturbing ideas.
He concludes: "The text demonstrates impressive
foresight on the two systems of society, the Western and
the Soviet one. While a strong thinker could possibly
predict the development of the West in 1901, how could he
grasp the Soviet future?" Solzhenitsyn braved the
Soviet regime, dared to write and publish the mammoth
Archipelago Gulag, an indictment of the Soviet
repression, but even he stalled and did not publish his
research of the Protocols. He asked it to be published
after his death only, and it was printed against his will
in a very small number of copies in 2001. Let us follow
Solzhenitsyn's line of thought and gaze into the crystal
ball of the Protocols, while temporarily discounting its
"Jewish line" and paying heed to the idea of
creating a new system, not necessarily a Jewish-dominated
one. The master-plan begins with reshaping of human mind:
" People's minds should be diverted
(away from contemplation) towards industry and trade, and
then they will have no time to think. The people will be
consumed by the pursuit of gain. It will be vain pursuit,
for we shall put industry on a speculative basis: what is
withdrawn from the land by industry will slip through the
hands of workers and industrialists and pass into the
hands of financiers.
The intensified struggle for survival and superiority,
accompanied by crises and shocks will create cold and
heartless communities with strong aversion towards
religion. Their only guide is gain that is Mammon, which
they will erect into a veritable cult".
Foresight of Anonym is amazing: in the days of the
Protocols' publication, Man was still the measure of
things, and full eighty years would pass, until Milton
Friedman and Chicago School would proclaim Market and
Profit as the only guiding light.
The tool for enslavement of minds is the media, writes
Anonym. "There is a great force that creates the
movement of thought in the people, and that is the media.
It is in the media that the triumph of freedom of speech
finds its incarnation. Through the Press we have gained
the power to influence minds while remaining unobserved.
We shall erase from the memory of men the historical
facts we do not want them to know, and leave only those
we wish".
Years will pass since the publication until a small group
of people who control our discourse while remaining
unobserved, the media lords, would rise. The free
discussion of the media barons, Berlusconi and Black,
Maxwell and Sulzberger, Gusinsky and Zuckerman is banned
from the media they own, while their cooperative affinity
remains impressive. The freedom of discourse survives
wherever independent (from media barons) media still
exists. Hundred years ago, this force was much weaker
than it is now, and it is amazing the Anonym recognised
its potential.
Century before the rise of World Bank and IMF, the
Protocols noticed the
foreign loans are the best tools to rob countries of
their wealth. "While the loans were internal, money
remained in the land, but with externalisation of loans,
all nations pay tribute of their subjects to the
oligarchy". Indeed, the bigger loans poor countries
get, the poorer they become.
Concentration of capital in the hands of financiers,
concentration of media
in few hands, extra-judicial killings of unyielding
leaders, stock market with its derivatives sucks out
wealth and it accumulates in the hands of the priesthood
of Mammon, gain (or "market forces") as the
only measure of successful strategy. Yes, the interest to
the Protocols does not disappear because the described
plan of creating oligarchic (not necessarily Jewish) rule
is being implemented in real time and it is called the
New World Order.
Sometimes, the Protocols are described as
extreme-right-wing anti-utopian
piece of writing. However, it spans both left and
right-wing discourse. A
right-wing writer would bless strengthening of Law and
Order, but the following prediction of Anonym could be
written today by a leftist libertarian, say, Noam
Chomsky, witnessing the present transition to the New
World Order: "The race of armaments and the increase
of police force will bring forth society where are only
the masses of the proletariat, a few millionaires, police
and soldiers".
However, the deepest thought of Anonym remains in the
spiritual sphere:
"Freedom might be harmless and have its place in the
State economy without
injury to the well-being of the people if it rested upon
the foundation of
faith in God, upon the Brotherhood of humanity. This is
the reason why it is
indispensable for us to undermine all faith, to tear out
of the people's mind the very principle of God and the
Spirit, and to put in its place arithmetical calculations
and material needs".
Anonym connects the Faith and the idea of Brotherhood of
humanity.
Undermining of Faith ruins the Brotherhood. Freedom,
instead of desirable
and beautiful state of mind, turns into destructive drive
when unhinged from
the Faith. Instead of Faith, the Enemy offers pursuit of
Mammon.
While reading in today's (16.11.02) IH Tribune philippics
against gay priests and nuns, one notes the following
lines in the Protocols: "We have taken care to
discredit the Christian priesthood and ruin their mission
which might still hinder our plans. Day by day, their
influence on the people is falling lower. Collapse of
Christianity is nigh".
We witness implementation of this plan: religion is
removed from consideration, neo-liberalism or Mammon
worship takes its place, while with disestablishment of
socialism, this brave attempt of a non-faith-based
brotherhood collapsed, leaving ideological vacuum.
 This observation caused some
reviewers to exclaim, "The true designer of the
Master-plan is our old foe, the Prince of the World,
whose ultimate aim is elimination of Divine Presence and
ruination of Man". True, but the Prince of the World
can't act directly. He needs free agents that choose to
accept his plan. These chief agents and possible allies,
according to the pamphlet, are financial capitalists and
Masters of Discourse, 'the Mind'.
They promote to the highest positions "politicians
who, in case of disobedience to our instructions, must
face criminal charges or disappear. We shall arrange
elections in favour of candidates with some dark,
undiscovered stain in their past. They will be our
trustworthy agents out of fear of revelations" For
us, contemporaries of Watergate and Lewinsky, it sounds
familiar.
The shift from Stage One (liberalism and freedom) to
Stage Two (tyranny) took place in our lifetime. If in
1968 the NY Times promoted the Freedom Riders, in 2002 it
supports Patriot Act. An important American lawyer, Alan
Dershovitz of Harvard made a U-turn from Human rights to
Right to torture. This U-turn was predicted by the
Protocols, as the purpose beyond the struggle against the
old elites.
"The aristocracy enjoyed the labour of the workers,
and it was interested in seeing that the workers were
well fed, healthy, and strong. The people have
annihilated the aristocracy, and have fallen into the
grips of merciless money-grinding scoundrels".
In less emotional terms, the new bourgeoisie removed the
old elites with support of people, while promising
freedom and objecting to their privilege. After its
victory, it took the privilege to itself, and turned out
to be as bad (or worse) as the feudal lord. Marx referred
to this complaint of aristocracy in one of the numerous
additions to the Communist Manifesto, and considered it
futile if partly justified. However, he did not live to
witness a similar process which took place in the last
days of the Soviet Union. The rising new bourgeoisie took
control over the discourse, convinced people to fight the
privilege of Nomenclature for the sake of equality and
freedom, and after their victory, it assumed and
multiplied the privilege, and rejected equality and
freedom.
The Protocols predict rise of New Bourgeoisie,
globalist Mammon-worshippers,
who are inherently hostile to Old Elites, to spirit, to
religion, to the ordinary people. For a long while, they
were the engine of the left, democracy-seeking movements,
until their purpose was completed, and then they made the
U-turn towards oligarchy.
This U-turn can be quantified by the inheritance and land
tax rate in England: while the financial bourgeoisie and
Masters of Discourse fought against the old ruling
classes, the rates were high and eventually dismantled
their power base; after their victory, the rate decreased
allowing consolidation of the new ruling classes. It is
possible that the Old Order had had some advantages. It
is almost certain that a transition from the Old Order
could be different if the people would understand the
intentions of the enemy. But history can't be reversed,
and it is quite futile to dream of return of the good
lords and benevolent Party bosses.
Thus, the Protocols (purified of references to the Jews
and conspiracies) are useful as they describe a blueprint
of the New World Order, and help its adversaries to form
a defensive strategy against the designs of Enemy. But
the references to the Jews constitute large and important
part of the text.
The Jews and the Protocols
The Protocols identify the moving force of the New World
Order with a powerful group of extremely chauvinist,
manipulative and domination-obsessed
Jewish leaders. The leaders, according to the Protocols,
despise ordinary community members; they utilise and
support anti-Semitism as the means to keep their
"lesser brethren", innocent ordinary folk of
Jewish origin, in thrall to their rule. The leaders are
described as pathological goy haters, bent on destroying
culture and traditions of other nations while preserving
their own. Their goal is to create world government and
rule the homogenised and globalised world.
Their aims and intentions are stated in extremely
contrarian and obnoxious way. Solzhenitsyn concluded that
no sane person would deliver his favourite ideas in such
self-demeaning and self-defeating way. "We extract
gold from their blood and tears", "our power is
based on workers' hunger", "revolutionaries are
our human tools", "brutish minds of Goyim"
are, in his opinion, words ascribed to the Jews by their
enemies. A Jew would rather put such ideas in an oblique
way, he felt.
It is not a water-tight argument. Some people speak in
oblique way, others prefer a direct one. An Armenian from
the Azeri capital, Baku told me in long gone 1988,
"The Azeris are our cattle, without our Armenian
mind their country would collapse in course of days, as
they are silly donkeys". (A few months later, an
explosion of native violence expelled the clever
Armenians from Azerbaijan, and since then the Azeris
manage their own land quite all right.) David Ben Gurion,
the first ruler of the Jewish state, coined an equally
arrogant maxim: "Who cares what Goyim say? What
matters is what the Jews do!" This sentence is an
almost direct quote from the Protocols.
The Protocols ascribe to the Elders a saying, "Each
Jewish victim is worth in the sight of God a thousand
goyim". This line, a pinnacle of arrogance, is not a
vain invention of an anti-Semite. Two ministers of
Sharon's government, Uri Landau and Ivet Lieberman
demanded to kill one thousand Palestinian goyim for each
Jewish victim. A Jewish extremist at a demo for the
Jewish Temple Mount (18.11.02) called each Jew to kill
one thousand Palestinian goyim. Apparently, some ideas of
the Protocols are not foreign to some Jews.
The late Israeli scholar Israel Shahak and an American
Jewish writer Norton Mezvinsky present in their Jewish
Fundamentalism in Israel[6] a plethora of sayings by
Jewish Rabbis that wouldn't be out of place in the
Protocols. "The difference between a Jewish soul and
souls of non-Jews is greater and deeper than the
difference between a human soul and the souls of
cattle" (p. ix). Shahak and Mezvinsky proved the
rage of the Jewish chauvinists does not differentiate
between Palestinians, Arabs and Goyim in general. In
other words, whatever happened to Palestinians could
happen to any Gentile community standing on the way of
the Jews.
Indeed, if the Protocols would have no relation to
reality, they probably wouldn't be as popular as they
are. The Jews are sufficiently powerful to dream of
domination, and some do. Apparently some Jewish ideas
found their
way into the text. Other thoughts are ascribed to the
Jews on the basis of "qui bono".
The least acceptable idea of the Protocols is the
presumption of an extremely ancient conspiracy of the
Jews aiming to take over the world. The extreme
philo-Semitic view denies the Jews their ability to act
together and presents them as separate individuals united
by prayer only. This view is not accepted by the Jews,
and it does not agree with the common sense.
Solzhenitsyn does not believe in existence of the Elders
of Zion, though "the togetherness and coordination
of Jewish activity for the sake of their advancement
caused many writers (beginning from Cicero) to imagine
there is a single commanding centre to direct their
attacks". "Without such a world centre,
without conspiring, the Jews understand each other and
are able to coordinate their actions".
The Jews are perfectly able to coordinate their actions,
but I doubt human beings, Jews or English, Russians or
Chinese are able to form long-standing plans spanning
centuries and continents. Nobody was able to prove such a
plot exists. Usually, 'anti-Semites' (the people who
doubt or deny inherent benevolence of the Jews to Gentile
society) argue for its authenticity as Henry Ford did.
The car king said[7]: "the only statement I care to
make about the Protocols is that they fit in with what is
going on." Indeed they do, exclaims Victor Marsden,
the English translator of the Protocols.
However, it is not a proof of Jewish plot. We can reach
similar results rejecting the conspiracy line altogether,
by applying the concept of self-interest to the real
Jewish community as it was aptly described by
Shahak-Mezvinsky. We shall prove that the troublesome
concept of the Hidden Hand or the Elders of Zion is
superfluous and unnecessary.
Traditional Jewish community had a structure of
"upturned pyramid", in words of Zionist
theoreticians: it contained many persons of wealth,
learning and management, and very few workers. It appears
an odd thing, until one understands that the Zionists
artificially view the Jews in divorce of the society they
live in. The Jewish 'upturned pyramid' couldn't exist
without a real down-turned pyramid of Gentile low
classes. The Jews compete with the native elites of the
Gentile society for the right to exploit the Gentile
worker and peasant. The modus operandi of the two
competitors differs. While native elites shared some
values with their lower classes and usually provided for
some upward mobility, the Jewish community had its own
structure and values.
Economically it stood for capitalist or quasi-capitalist
exploitation of the natives, while ideologically the
community declared loyalty to its leaders, rejection of
common humanity with the natives, extreme ethnocentrism,
feeling of racial and religious superiority towards the
natives. It was a marginal community, forming no bonds of
marriage and friendship with the natives. As a marginal
community, it was free of long-standing considerations
the native elites had had.
For instance, the Jewish community of 17th century
Ukraine has been a collective tax-farmer and leaseholder,
extracting from the natives SIX times more taxes and dues
per person than a gentile landlord did, wrote a prominent
Jewish Ukrainian historian Saul Borovoy in a recently
published in Jerusalem book. The Jewish communities of
Maghreb supported the colonial power against their
gentile neighbours, etc. Their traditions forbade normal
relations with the natives.
Let us presume that such a community acts in its egoistic
interests. Forget conspiracy; forget the Elders of Zion,
learned or otherwise. The community's only aim is to
promote its own well-being. For a marginal group it means
to make the social gap between its members and the native
population as broad as possible, while minimising the
backlash potential.
The group would naturally, for its self-interest, support
every movement against native elites, whether initiated
by the King (as the Jews did before the French
Revolution) or by the rebelling low classes. It would not
be done for the Jewish love of democracy or rebellious
nature, but for improvement of their own positions. Ideal
situation would be created by massacre or expulsion of
the native elites, as the group members would be able to
appropriate their positions. Indeed, it happened in
Soviet Russia and Soviet Hungary in the aftermath of
World War One. Massacre and exile of the native elites
made the positions of power and influence available to
the competing
Jews.
Self-interest explains the Jewish involvement with the
dreaded Cheka, the Soviet security services. Until 1937,
the Jews occupied the top echelon of the KGB predecessor
body, while millions of Russians lost their life or
liberty. Objectively, these executioners made jobs and
houses available for their fellow Jews. After the
massacre and exile of Russian elites, the Jews were ready
for equality, as a son of a Rabbi could easily compete
with a son of Russian worker or peasant, though he
wouldn't be able to compete with a son of Russian noble.
In a similar way, the Jews in Israel granted limited
equality to the Palestinians in 1966, after confiscation
of 90% of native lands and expulsion of 90% of natives.
Now, the settlers promise to extend equality to the rest
of Palestinians, after they will expel the majority of
them elsewhere. In the light of great Jewish support for
Israel, there is no reason to presume that the Jewish
modus operandi in Palestine is intrinsically different
from the Jewish intentions abroad.
Solzhenitsyn writes: "Executed <during the
revolution> army officers were Russians, the noblemen,
priests, monks, deputies were Russians. In 1920s, the
pre-revolutionary engineers and scientists were exiled or
killed. They were Russians, while their place was taken
by Jews. The best Russian Psychiatric institute in
Moscow, its Russian members were arrested or exiled,
while their place was taken by the Jews. Important Jewish
doctors blocked the advancement of Russian medical
scientists. The best intellectual and artistic elites of
Russian people were killed, while the Jews grew and
flourished in these (deadly for Russians) years".
The new Jewish elite did not fully identify with Russia
but carried out separate policy. It had a fateful effect
in 1991, when over 50 p.c. of Jews (as opposed to 13 p.c.
of Russians) supported pro-Western coup of President
Yeltsin. In 1995, 81% of Jews voted for pro-Western
parties, and only 3% for the Communists (as opposed to
46% of Russians), according to the publication by the
Jewish sociologist Dr Ryvkina in her book Jews in
Post-Soviet Russia (1996).
In ever-expanding America, the Jews did not have to kill
or remove the native elites; they became its important
part, controlling discourse and wielding considerable
financial clout. They still do not identify with the
goyish America: every year, they force the Congress and
the Administration to send five billion dollars to their
Israeli offshoot and now try to let America fight their
war in Iraq. They do discriminate other Americans,
otherwise 60% of the leading positions in the media would
not become Jewish[8].
..The
Persistence of Memory - Salvador Dali
Jews of France do not identify with France, either.
"Their identification with Israel is so strong; it
overshadows their ties to the country they live in".
- writes Daniel Ben Simon in Haaretz. - "This dual
loyalty was made very clear to me by a Jewish doctor in
Nice."If the choice is between Israel and France,
there's no question I feel closer to Israel," he
said, without a moment's hesitation. He was born and bred
in France; he went to medical school in France; his
patients are French; he speaks French with his wife and
children. But in the depths of his heart, he feels a
greater affinity with the Jewish state".
In Palestine, the Jews have no compassion for the
natives. They travel by segregated roads, study in
segregated schools, while a Jew consumes ten times more
water resources than a goy, and has seven times higher
income. Thus, the Jewish separateness remains a fact of
life for many Jewish communities.
For their own well-being the Jews have to obscure their
unique position, wealth and power by the following means:
-
Holocaust discourse helps to fight envy.
- In a
mono-ethnic society, the Jews as the only foreign body do
stick out and attract attention, while in multicultural
society they are hardly seen. For this purpose, the Jews
support immigration from non-European countries, as their
presence would remove the stamp of Jewish exclusiveness.
- The
Political Correctness is another device forbidding the
discussion of Jewish influence.
- Fight
against Christianity and the Church makes sense for a
non-Christian community: if the Church would be strong,
the Christians would prefer their own, Christian elite.
-
Globalisation is a natural development for the people
spread all over the globe, if they attach but little
importance to the local ways.
-
Impoverishment of the natives is but another side of
growing wealth of the Jewish community.
Summing it up, a big share (though not all) of the ideas
ascribed to the Jews by the Protocols are indeed the
ideas useful or necessary for the Jewish communal
well-being, without any need for great hatred towards
Gentiles and/or the guidance of mythic Elders of Zion.
That is the reason of the Protocols' long life.
Paradoxically, without Israeli apartheid these facts
would remain invisible for the host communities.
-
[1] A HORSELESS RIDER, THE PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF
ZION & IMPORTED
BIGOTRY By Qais S. Saleh, CounterPunch November 13, 2002
http://www.counterpunch.com/saleh1112.html
see more on
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/egypt021121_TV.html
[2] http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,775668,00.html The
poisonous Protocols by Umberto Eco
[3] CIDE HAMETE BENENGELI, in Cervantes' spelling
[4] Nom de plume of François Rabelais.
[5] Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Evrei v SSSR i v budushei
Rossii, 2001 (in
Russian)
[6] Pluto Press, 1999
[7] in an interview published in the New York World,
February 17th, 1921
[8] The data provided by Kevin MacDonald of California
University.
Israel Shamir is an Israeli journalist based in Jaffa.
His articles can be
found on the site www.israelshamir.net In order to subscribe to
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