Arab Views on "The Protocols"

Author(s): Bernard Lewis and Abdelwahab M. Elmessiri

Source: Foreign Affairs, Vol. 55, No. 3 (Apr., 1977), pp. 641-643
Published by: Council on Foreign Relations
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COMMENT AND CORRESPONDENCE 641
Mr. Davies' China
policy
recommendations,
as contained on the last
page
of
his
article,
invite
comparison
with those of
Jerome
Alan
Cohen,
in
your previous
issue. The Davies'
recommendations,
clear-cut and consistent with the thrust of
his
article,
are otherwise
supported only by
the most
spare
of comments.
Professor
Cohen's,
on the other
hand,
are
subjected
to extended discussion
which discloses that he is
trying
to have his China
policy
both
ways.
Professor Cohen would have us withdraw
recognition
from Taiwan in the
interest of
normalizing
relations with
Peking,
and substitute a unilateral defense
commitment to Taiwan in
place
of the 1954 mutual defense
treaty
?which would
be terminated
automatically upon
the withdrawal of U.S.
recognition
of the
government
of the
Republic
of China.
However,
his
suggestion
of a
congres
sional resolution
"authorizing
in advance
any
action in defense of Taiwan that
might,
at the discretion of the
President, prove necessary"
is
entirely
too evoca
tive of the Tonkin Gulf resolution of
unhappy
memory. Moreover,
if we had
both withdrawn our
recognition
of Taiwan and
recognized
the
Peking regime,
it
would be difficult for
us to
argue
that
extending
a defense
guarantee
to Taiwan
did not constitute a violation of the
principle
of noninterference in the internal
affairs of China ?to which we committed ourselves in the
Shanghai
commu
niqu?.
The
persuasiveness
of
John
Davies'
policy
recommendations derives in
part
?
though only
in
part
?from the absence of detailed
supporting argument,
which
might
disclose their
strengths
and weaknesses. He does
not,
for
example,
explore
the contradiction between interests of the
people
of Taiwan and the
policies
of the Nationalist
government
or estimate the chances that Taiwan could
both
gain
and maintain a
genuinely
autonomous status within the
People's
Republic
of China. On the other hand he could
have,
but did
not,
make a
very
persuasive
case for his recommendation that we terminate our
defense commit
ment to Taiwan
?which,
for
practical purposes,
extends also to the offshore
islands with their
garrisons totaling perhaps
seven divisions.
(Incidentally,
I
wonder what will become of the
policy,
which the
Nixon/Ford
Administration
followed
quietly,
of
helping
Taiwan beef
up
its own defense
capabilities, appar
ently
in
preparation
for the
anticipated
termination of the 1954
treaty,
which
might
be
accomplished
either
by
one
party giving
a
year's
notice or
by joint agree
ment.)
Edward E. Rice
Tibur?n, California
(Former Deputy
Assistant
Secretary of
State
for
Far Eastern
Affairs)
ARAB VIEWS ON "THE PROTOCOLS
To the Editor:
In his article entitled "The Anti-Zionist Resolution"
(Foreign Affairs,
October
1976),
Professor Bernard Lewis makes the
sweeping allegation
that "The Proto
cols of the Elders of Zion" are
"universally
cited in Arabic literature on
Jewish
matters." He also
asserts,
with
regard
to the
Protocols,
that: "To
my
knowledge,
its
authenticity
has never been refuted or even
called into
question by
an Arab
writer." One is hard
put
to
figure
out how Professor Lewis arrived at these
conclusions.
The Research Center of the Palestine Liberation
Organization
in Beirut is
among
the
leading
institutions which
publish
literature on
"Jewish
matters." Its
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642 FOREIGN AFFAIRS
publications
on
Judaism
and Zionism are
many
and
varied,
but none have ever
made reference to the
Protocols, except perhaps
in
derogatory
terms. Dr. A.
Razzuk's
study
on the Talmud and Zionism
vigorously opposes
the
"conspirato
rial view" of the
Jews
and Zionists.
Likewise,
the Institute of Palestine Studies in Beirut has never dealt with this
topic
nor has it ever
engaged
in
any
anti-Jewish
diatribes.
Dr. A.
Al-Attiyeh,
Director of the Palestine Research Center in
Baghdad,
denounced the Protocols on
Iraqi
television in the
spring
of
1974,
describing
them as of
questionable authenticity.
Arab
Issues,
a
periodical published
in Damascus
by
Abdelwahab
El-Kayyali
who is a
leading figure
in the Palestinian resistance movement and a PLO
member,
has also
published
an article in the same vein.
The Center of Political and
Strategic
Studies,
which is
part
of al-Ahram
Publishing
House in
Cairo,
has never
published any
anti-Semitic material. I
worked there for four
years
as Director of the Zionist
Ideology Department
and
myself
authored an
article,
which
appeared
in al-Ahram in
February
1974,
titled
"The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." In it I traced the
"history"
of the
pamphlet
and
specifically pointed
out that it is believed to be a
forgery. Furthermore,
the
article in
question
noted that the
diversity
of the historical
experience
of the
Jewish
communities in the world
disproves
the
simplistic theory
of "a
grand
conspiracy"
or "a world
government" by
the
Jews.
I also noted that the
Protocols
presented
a view of the
Jew
as a
unique entity, existing
outside
history,
a
concept
that has much in common with the Zionist
ideology.
This
article
now
constitutes the
entry
under "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" in
my Encyclopedia of
Zionist
Concepts
and
Terminology:
A Critical
Review,
published by
the Center in
February
of 1975. The same material was
incorporated
in
my
lectures on the economic
history
of
European Jewry,
which was
published
later
in the same
year by
the Institute of Arab Studies affiliated with the Arab
League
in Cairo.
All this is to underscore the fact that almost all the Arab institutes
engaged
in
Palestinian,
Jewish
or Zionist studies hold a
negative
view of the Protocols
and
classify
them as
among
the more
objectionable
anti-Semitic literature.
Professor Lewis'
allegations
are
typical
of the
derogatory generalizations
one
often comes across in the Western
press
and in literature from Western sources.
Regrettably, any
action that tends to
disprove
such
allegations
is
generally
ignored
in the Western media of information. Last
August
in
Tripoli, Libya,
a
number of
papers
delivered at an International
Symposium
on Zionism and
Racism
strongly
denounced anti-Semitism.
. . .
An American
rabbi,
highly
criti
cal of
Israel,
called for its
expulsion
from the U.N... .The credentials of an
Argentinian delegate
who
praised
the Protocols were withdrawn and his
speech
was
expunged
from the records of the conference. Yet none of this was
reported
in the Western
press.
Dr. Abdelwahab M. Elmessiri
Assistant
Professor of English
and American
Poetry
Ain Shams
University,
Cairo
Professor
Lewis
replies:
It is
encouraging
to hear from Dr. Elmessiri that there is now some dissent
from the
long
list of
presidents, kings,
members of
governments, party leaders,
ideologues,
divines,
journalists,
scholars,
and ministries of
information,
educa
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COMMENT AND CORRESPONDENCE 643
tion and culture that have used or endorsed the so-called Protocols of the Elders
of Zion. His
comments, however,
are
sadly revealing
of the limits of this dissent.
An
Iraqi
television
program,
he
says,
describes the Protocols
as
"of
question
able
authenticity."
He
himself,
he tells
us,
has
pointed
out in an article that
they
are "believed to be
a
forgery."
If Dr.
Elmessiri,
writing
in
English
in the
pages
of
Foreign Affairs,
cannot
bring
himself to
say
outright
that the book is an anti
Jewish
fake,
then one
may expect
the "denunciations" in Arabic
publications
to
be even more
circumspect.
Dr. Elmessiri's article in al-Ahram
(February
22, 1974, page 4)
confirms this
impression.
"The
prevailing opinion
at the
present time,"
he
says,
"is that the
Protocols are a
forged
document." This cautious formulation is a
step
forward.
However,
some
questions
remain. Who
forged
them and what do
they repre
sent? Here Dr. Elmessiri is
remarkably equivocal. Apart
from some rather
ambiguous
references to the Bolshevik revolution and the German
defeat,
there
is little indication that the
forgers
were
anti-Jewish
and that the Protocols were
used
by
the Nazis and others to
justify
racist action
against
the
Jews.
On the
contrary,
the
unwary
reader could be left with the
impression
that if the
Protocols were not
actually
fabricated
by Jews, they
nevertheless
accurately
reflect the
image
which the Zionists hold of themselves and desire to
project
to
others. Here Dr. Elmessiri sketches the
theory
which he has
developed
more
fully
in other
writings
?
that Zionism and anti-Semitism are the
same,
that
Zionists and anti-Semites are natural allies and
collaborators,
and thus whether
the one or the other was
responsible
for the Protocols
really
makes
very
little
difference. As Dr. Elmessiri
aptly
summarizes his thesis ?"Eichmann was a Zion
ist."
By
the same
reasoning, apartheid
is
a
form of Black nationalism.
As I
pointed
out in
my article,
some Arab writers are
unhappy
with the
Protocols,
not because
they
are
forged,
but because
they represent
a
naively
personal
and
conspiratorial
and therefore ineffective
approach
to the
problem
of Zionism. Dr. Elmessiri has a further concern about the Protocols
?
that
they
project
a
possibly demoralizing image
of the
Jew
as the
possessor
of immense
hidden
power.
He is
ready
to consider that
they may
be a
documentary forgery,
but insists that
they authentically represent
Zionist views and aims. The
falsity
of
these,
he
says,
is demonstrated
by
the October
War,
which showed how baseless
is the
image
of secret
Jewish power
and
organization.
In
concluding
his article
on the
Protocols,
Dr. Elmessiri observes: "We must know our
enemy,
but we
must not
accept
his delusions about himself."
In a sentence to which Dr. Elmessiri took
exception,
I said of the Protocols:
"To
my knowledge
its
authenticity
has never been refuted or even called into
question by any
Arab writer." The first
part stands;
the second needs modifica
tion. Dr. Elmessiri has shown that some Arab writers have indeed called its
authenticity
into
question,
or rather have shown awareness that others have
done
so,
though
with a curious reluctance to abandon it
entirely.
There is
progress
?but the careful
ambiguity
with which
this,
like some other
matters,
is
presented
remains an obstacle to
understanding.
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