[Summary: According to popular belief, the EU, the US government and the Muslim states have three distinct positions on the hottest issues of the day, the Arab-Jewish conflict and anti-Semitism. But do they? In hidden and open ways, the public in Muslim countries and the West is being sold political anti-Semitism. The central idea in this political philosophy is that a supposed conspiracy of Jews dominates the world - or at least the US and Europe - causing all problems. This idea isn't new; it's all in the Protocols of Zion and Mein Kampf. As in the past, the goal is to leverage already existing prejudice against Jews to create movements indoctrinated in the false belief that ?The Jews? are causing world problems, thus protecting the Establishments in North America, Europe and the Muslim countries. And now we see George Bush openly fomenting hatred of Jews.



Part I of this article can be read on Arutz-7 at http://www.israelnn.com/article.php3?id=3054.]



Enter George the Indispensable[8]



Now comes George Bush, Jr. with his contribution.



After Mahathir accused 'The Jews' of humiliating Muslims, Bush says he privately rebuked Mahathir for being "divisive". Pretty mild considering that Mahathir was cheered by Muslim heads of state for inciting holy war. By the way, Mahathir claims Bush did not rebuke him. Rather, claims Mahathir, Bush apologized for "having to" criticize him.[9]



Whether Mahathir is lying, or Bush, or both, the important statement was made by Bush's adviser, Condoleezza Rice. She said that, although Mahathir's comments were hateful, they did not reflect the views of Muslim leaders. Sounds great, but then who gave Mahathir that standing ovation?



It is precisely because Mahathir's views do represent the thinking of millions of Muslims - and not only Muslims - that an entirely different kind of statement was needed, something that would challenge the thinking of people who agree with Mahathir.



a) Bush should have shown, point by point, that Mahathir's accusations come from the book, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.[3]



b) He should have explained that The Protocols is a work of make-believe cobbled together by the Czar's secret police from earlier works of fiction, in order to justify a crackdown on Russian reformers a hundred years ago.[3B]



c) He should have explained that because the book and its ideas proved effective, they have been used for 100 years to turn fear and hatred of Jews into a political force.



The Protocols has been used this way in the Arab world - e.g., by the Baath party in Syria and Iraq and by Gamal Abd el-Nasser in Egypt - and it was used this way by the Nazis. Like Mahathir, Hitler claimed Europe and the US were controlled by a Jewish conspiracy to humiliate and destroy (in this case) Germans. That idea was crazy, as proven by the fact that not one of the states supposedly controlled by Jews lifted a finger to interfere with Hitler's Final Solution.



Today, The Protocols is family entertainment in Arab countries.[9A] And its ideas are pushed in the West, as well.



Could Bush, or whoever writes his speeches, have offered a serious refutation of Mahathir's arguments? If he tried, he would have run into two problems.



First problem: He would have had to discuss Nazism. This could get sticky for Bush. The Nazi rearmament of Germany was paid for largely with American money. Bush's grandfather and great-grandfather played a leading role.[9B]



Bush could finesse this by avoiding German rearmament. But there's a second problem as well.



The Second Problem is the Killer



Exposing the fictional content of Mahathir's source, The Protocols of Zion,[3B] and showing the absurdity [3A] of these ideas wouldn't have been hard. Nor would it have been hard to show that Protocols-type thinking is deadly, and not just for Jews. After all, ninety percent of the people who died in Hitler's war (which was justified by The Protocols) were Gentiles.



So why didn't Bush do it? What was the second problem?



Everything I am about to say will challenge conventional wisdom. It will challenge beliefs held by people who are worried about anti-Semitism and people who think it is a tempest in a teapot. It will challenge the thinking of people who consider themselves pro-Israel and of those who consider themselves pro-PLO.



The second problem is that the US and European Establishments do not want to defeat Mahathir's ideas.



Why?



Because they are spreading the same ideas themselves.



Why on earth would they spread such ideas?



For an old reason: They want to direct people's anger over problems at home and abroad against 'The Jews' rather than against themselves - the Establishment of the aggressively expanding US-led empire.



How are they achieving this?



Articles in the mass media, carefully calculated actions and statements of Bush administration officials, and the statements and writings of Bush critics create a certain impression. That impression is that Jewish or pro-Jewish neoconservatives have taken control of the Bush administration and use their power supposedly to direct US foreign policy to serve evil Israeli (i.e., Jewish) ends.



By spreading the false idea that the US is dominated by Israel, or 'The Jews,' everything the US does is explained as Israel's policy: the war in Iraq, the takeover of Afghanistan, even the covert sponsorship of Islamist terror. You name it. Anything and everything.



This belief is so full of factual and logical holes it would leak in the rain. But people are not presented with the evidence that shows the absurdity of the notion that a pro-Israel cabal is running the U.S.



Consider the argument that the US invaded Iraq to help Israel.



In fact, from a geopolitical standpoint, the invasion of Iraq was terrible for Israel. Why? Because Saddam Hussein's Iraq was hostile to the leaders of both Saudi Arabia and Iran. Situated between them, it hindered both; so the destruction of Hussein's horrible Baath dictatorship has removed an obstacle to the power of the Saudi and Iranian regimes, both of which lead international Islamist movements, with anti-Semitism as a motivating force and the destruction of Israel as a central goal.[9C]



What country fought Iran in a fierce war that lasted almost a decade? Israel? No, Saddam Hussein's Iraq.



What next-door neighbor threatened Saudi Arabia and challenged it for leadership of the Sunni Muslim world? Saddam Hussein's Iraq.



Moreover, even before the invasion, there was compelling evidence that the US was working with Iran to install an Islamic fundamentalist government in Iraq. Karzai, the Islamic fundamentalist whom the US installed in Afghanistan, is close to the Iranian leaders and is one of the people who gave Mahathir a standing ovation at the OIC. Would an Islamic fundamentalist regime in Iraq be friendlier to Jews than Karzai? If anything it would be more hostile - subservient to Iran.[9D]



Does Israel need an Iran-Iraq superstate dedicated to destroying Israel? A state that controls the Persian Gulf?



What brilliant strategists these neocons are to attack not Iran or Saudi Arabia, Israel's worst enemies, but Saddam Hussein, who hampered those enemies!



Moreover, it seems to me that the whole way in which the war in Iraq has been and is being conducted (and opposed) is suspect. It smells of con game. I believe that certain grotesque seeming missteps were deliberately taken to foster the suspicion that Bush and Tony Blair were being pushed into Iraq by Israel. We have seen the unprecedented phenomenon of establishment leaders, like Robin Cooke, who has discovered, late in life, that he hates government lies, and intelligence operatives like Scott Ritter leading the fight against a US war.[9E] This creates the false sense among ordinary people of a struggle within the Establishment and lays the basis for the argument that 'valiant' people within the elite are resisting 'The Jews.'



The slogan, 'Oppose the Empire!' comes to suggest 'Free the Establishment from Jewish domination!' This mentality is what is meant by the phrase, 'creating a mass base for Fascism.'



Having fostered the now widespread belief that 'we invaded Iraq for the Jews,' Establishment operatives can argue that:



a) Now it's payback time, i.e., 'Those Jews' have to give the Palestinians a state, which translates to the destruction of Israel, because a Palestinian state would be headed by anti-Semitic terrorists with a genocidal ideology; and



b) We have to do something to curb the Jews in the US and other Western countries, because they are dominating everything and thereby causing all sorts of problems - shades of Germany in the 1920s -'30s.



This explains why, when Mahathir expressed his hallucination, born of the Czarist secret police, that 'the Jews' run the world with a goal to destroying 1.3 billion Muslims, Bush offered the absurdly off-the-mark response that Mahathir was being "divisive". People hear this and they think, "Bush can't refute that Malaysian dude so he has to chastise him for saying what everybody knows is true. It's just that the Jews don't want anyone to hear it!"



In fact, the people who really cause the problems - and these people are not 'The Jews,' but the economic-political elite that the old Left used to call 'the ruling class' - most definitely do want ordinary people to hear that 'the Jews' are supposedly The Problem. Blaming the Jews is music to the ruling class's ears, just as it was in previous times of crisis, in Czarist Russia, and then in Germany.



Is the current flurry of Protocols of Zion-type attacks on Jews a coincidence?



In my opinion, Mahathir's speech was a calculated move, orchestrated by, or at least with the approval of, the European and US Establishments, to be followed by similarly insane remarks from other prominent figures. Statements like Mahathir's are made by this or that leader or celebrity, who is then dismissed as eccentric; perhaps, as in the case of Mahathir, the media criticizes him somewhat, but also points to 'positive' things about his speech. After such statements, rebukes are issued; perhaps this or that politician is expelled from his party; Mahathir or whomever points to these rebukes, mild or severe, as confirming the vast power of 'The Jews'.



What is the effect? To create an environment in which Nazi-like anti-Semitic arguments come to be perceived as normal and associated with resistance to a vaguely defined New World Order. People think, "Well, nobody can refute this stuff; they just say it's ugly. But where there's smoke, there's fire. At least these people have the guts to speak out."



In this fashion, Western populations are indoctrinated in the belief that their problems are produced by the 'hidden hand of The Jews.' Once adopted, this belief becomes a filter through which events are viewed, so that any event may be interpreted as confirming the prejudice.



'The Jews Did It!' - Take Two!



By the way, this is exactly what happened in Germany prior to the Nazi takeover.



Hitler did not invent the notion that the Jews were responsible for all the woes that had befallen Germany. Rather, the notion of a secret cabal of Jews stabbing Germany in the back was inculcated for many years by much broader forces, often with the support of the Establishment. And then, when conditions were appropriate and necessary, the Establishment swung full support over to the Nazis, who could march in as the seeming answer to a 'problem' - albeit a lie - which had already been sold to varying degrees to most ordinary people.



In other words, people who were voting for liberal, conservative or even left-wing parties had been convinced to varying extents of the lies that 'The Jews' instigated World War I for profit, and/or sold out Germany in that war, and/or were behind the ruinous inflation of the twenties, and/or had polluted German culture, and/or were starving Germany of credit through control of the banks and/or were pulling the strings of German Communism for the purpose of crippling Germany.



These ideas were not inculcated only by the Nazis. Indeed, for most of the period from World War I until the Nazi takeover, these ideas were not even inculcated mainly by the Nazis. Rather, these ideas were deliberately pushed by the German establishment through the media of various political currents. They became 'common knowledge,' because even fictional explanations can become common knowledge, thus laying the basis for the Nazis. From this perspective, Nazism was only the culmination of a process. It was the last part of a magic trick pulled off by the German elite.



Bush Echoes Mahathir



Mr. Bush visited the UK and delivered a speech about Iraq and other issues. After the speech he gave an interview to Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, an Arab paper owned by the Saudi government, which operates out of London. In both the speech and the interview, Bush used Mahathir's language, saying that Israeli Jews supposedly "humiliate Palestinians" by stopping them at checkpoints (as if there were not a real daily danger of terrorist attacks by Arabs).[10]



Will Ms. Rice now issue a statement assuring the world that Mr. Bush's remarks, though outrageous, do not reflect the views of other Western leaders?



Rules of the Game



* It is OK for leaders such as Mahathir and Bush to accuse Jews of humiliating Muslims, thus providing ammunition for those trying to organize Muslims to attack Jews. That is not inflammatory.



* It is OK for world leaders to refuse to condemn remarks that incite anti-Semitic violence. That is not inflammatory.



* But when such incitement contributes to attacks on Jews, it is not OK to identify the attackers if they are Muslims. Why? Isn't it obvious? That would be inflammatory. [To read the article from the Financial Times entitled "EU Body Shelves Report on Anti-Semitism," go to http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/eureport.htm#FT.]



[Originally posted on emperors-clothes.com. Part 2 of 2.]



Footnotes and Further Reading



[3] To find out about The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
, the book Hitler used to justify the slaughter of the Jews and also World War II, go to http://emperors-clothes.com/israelguide.htm#protocols.



[3A] Given the immense influence of The Protocols of Zion, it is amazingly badly done. See "'The Protocols of Zion' - Illogical, Sloppy, and Incoherent..." at http://emperors-clothes.com/antisem/protocols-2.htm.



[3B] Why does The Protocols have appeal? The appeal stems from the two works of fiction from which its theme and texts were taken. One book was a work of anti-Jewish fear-mongering. The other book was a very serious satire written to attack Napoleon III, the Emperor of France, a despot who used demagoguery to mobilize mass support. For more on this, see "Reader Comments: 'I am no anti-Semite. Why do some parts of The Protocols Ring True?' (http://emperors-clothes.com/letters/ringstrue.htm.)



[8] With apologies to Madeleine Albright. She was first to call the U.S. the 'Indispensable Nation'. The ancient Greeks said, 'Pride cometh before a fall..." George is the fall.



[9] New Straits Times-Management Times; October 22, 2003 Wednesday; Headline: ?Bush Did Not Rebuke Me?; Byline: Syed Nadzri



[9A] Egyptian 'Dream TV' produced a 41-episode series based on The Protocols of Zion. It was shown in 2002 during Ramadan, thus guaranteeing the maximum audience: fun for the whole family. For more on that, go to "Pakistani Student Asks: Was Egyptian TV Miniseries Really about Protocols of Zion?" This article includes quotes from the Egyptian Press. (http://emperors-clothes.com/letters/hardball.htm.)



[9B] Concerning the role played by George W. Bush's grandpa and great-grandpa, Prescott Bush and Herb Walker, in financing Nazism, see "Nazis in the Attic," at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/randy/swas1.htm.



Concerning US sponsorship of Muslim extremism, we've published a fair amount. Here are three articles:



a. As you may already know, the US fomented Islamic extremism in Afghanistan in the 1980s. For a detailed account, see "Washington's Backing of Afghan Terrorists: Deliberate Policy".



b. The accepted wisdom is that U.S. blundered in Afghanistan in the 1980s, not understanding it was empowering fanatical Muslim extremists. The following article is one of two we have published on Zalmay Khalilzad, now the NSA official in charge (and on the scene) from Afghanistan to Iraq. The first half of the following article focuses on disproving the oft-stated view that Khalilzad is just an oil consultant; the second half deals with Khalilzad's involvement (along with Zbigniew Brzezinski) in a company devoted to mobilizing Western media to portray the Mujahideen fighting in Afghanistan as freedom fighters. This company was funded by Congress for the purpose of deceiving the public about the character of the Islamist terrorists whom the US and Saudi Arabia spawned in Afghanistan. If you only want to read this part, see "Zbigniew and Zalmay's Excellent Afghan Pro-Terrorist Propaganda Adventure".



c. The official story is that the U.S. first tolerated the Taliban, then crushed them. Based on the following article, including Congressional testimony, it appears that in the middle-1990s, the U.S. played a duplicitous role, tricking anti-Taliban forces so that the Taliban could slaughter them. See "Congressman: U.S. Set Up Anti-Taliban to be Slaughtered. Excerpts from a most revealing hearing. Comments by Jared Israel".



[9C] Just for the record, in a piece written a year ago - that is, before we had direct evidence that the U.S. was quietly collaborating with Iran in preparation for the invasion of Iraq - I argued that:



"It seems rather obvious that the US policies of a) saber rattling against and perhaps attacking Iraq, which strengthens terrorist forces, while at the same time b) pushing for a Palestinian state, can only lead to mayhem on a grand scale.



"Moreover, the saber rattling (or worse, a real war) disguises and paradoxically dovetails with the continued US/European Empire's sponsorship of Islamic Fundamentalist terror."



In other words, invading Iraq would not help Israel. See, "A Los Angeles Reader Asks: Are You for or Against Saddam Hussein? Are You For or Against the Proposed War?" (http://emperors-clothes.com/letters/shussein.htm.



[9D] For Emperor?s Clothes articles that provide evidence that the US and Iran have been working together in Iraq, go to http://emperors-clothes.com/news/bombed.htm. That article deals with the issue, and if you scroll down to 'Footnotes and Further Reading' you will find a list of other such articles.



[9E] Regarding Robin Cook: As Foreign Secretary of the UK he was one of the biggest government liars during the 1999 anti-Yugoslav war, yet now we are supposed to believe he was shocked to learn that Blair lied about Iraq. In an Emperor?s Clothes article called "We've been lied to about Milosevic and the Serbs," I contrasted Cook's description of Milosevic's famous speech, delivered in Kosovo in 1989, with the actual content of the speech (http://emperors-clothes.com/milo/1feb.htm#1)



Regarding Scott Ritter: First, he has admitted that he was a marine intelligence officer whose specialty was assessing weapons capabilities until just before he became a UN weapons inspector whose job was assessing weapons capabilities, so it would certainly seem probable he never left marine intelligence. Second, his 'transformation' from Hawk to Dove occurred between 3 and 5 pm on December 16, 1998 without a word of explanation. Tom Brokaw interviewed him twice on NBC that day, asking him essentially the same questions both times about the then-current bombing of Iraq. During the first interview, Ritter said it was about time the US took strong action and it would have a good effect; during the second interview, he said the bombing was a disaster, justified by false arguments. Brokaw showed no reaction to this about-face, nor was there substantial comment in the mainstream press. Ritter simply was transformed from Hawk to Dove as if he were a character in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. My hypothesis: he was following orders and his orders changed. Orders from whom? Well, since it certainly appears likely that he never left military intelligence, it would be reasonable to posit that Ritter's orders came from military intelligence. (An article documenting Ritter's 'transformation' has been written but not yet posted.)



[10] Interview of the President by Al-Sharq Al-Awsat; The American Embassy; London, England; November 19, 2003 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/11/20031121-1.html.)