The Tsarist forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was not the first conspiracy theory about Jews, but it is perhaps the most famous one. It described specific steps that the Jewish cabal was said to use to take over the world and enrich its members: supporting wars, manipulating the media, and replacing religion with materialism.
Today we have updated versions of the protocols. They might not take the same written form as the older forgery, but they are imprinted in the minds of modern antisemites. These protocols include ideas such as: the Jewish lobby controls the American government; Israel ethnically cleanses non-Jews from Israel; Zionism is racism; Israel violates international law in myriad ways; and Jews use the Holocaust to justify their own Nazi-like crimes.
In some circles these new protocols have practically become a religion, and the people who believe the new lies are as fanatic as the ones who believe the old ones.
This book defines and exposes modern antisemitism. It shows how the scourge of Jew-hatred is as virulent as it ever was and how modern antisemites hide their hate behind the pretexts of human rights and international law. Protocols identifies and refutes the arguments of today’s haters. It is indispensable to understand how the world’s oldest hatred has returned and how it tries to disguise itself.
The book is divided into five parts.
After defining what antisemitism is, it describes different manifestations of the hate that comes from the Left, the Right, the Arab world and others.
Section 2 looks at what international law really says, not what Israel haters claim. It also shows how international law itself has been hijacked by those who hate Israel. Topics include how the media gets basic human rights law wrong in various Gaza conflicts, how NGOs redefine human shields to exonerate Hamas, the right of return and who is a refugee under international law.
Section 3 looks at how supposed experts and pundits keep getting Israel wrong, and why. It also looks at how anti-Israel thinkers have been against the Abraham Accords, actually rooting for them to fail.
Section 4 includes takedowns of the most articulate and clever demonizers of Israel, and how they use propaganda techniques to make their lies harder to recognize and counter. It has essays deconstructing Peter Beinart, Judith Butler, Noura Erakat and more.
Finally, Section 5 reviews how human rights organizations have been using their platforms to attack Israel. You see in detail how they use half-truths to give an overall false impression of Israel. It is very relevant today in the wake of Amnesty’s and Human Rights Watch’s accusations of Israel as guilty of apartheid.
This is a powerful examination of what antisemitism looks like today. We cannot fight Jew-hate until we recognize it.
