Journal for the Study of Antisemitism

116 JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF ANTISEMITISM [ VOL. 1:95
and depicts the founding of the State of Israel as a major step toward that
end.
The unprecedented use of The Protocols in a television series, reaching
perhaps as many as 200 million Muslims continuously for 41 days, constitutes
a radical escalation of both the scope and intensity of anti-Jewish
propaganda in the Muslim world. No scholarly essay or newspaper article
exposing the lie can possibly match the power of a widely-promoted,
prime-time TV series scheduled immediately after the nightly meal that
breaks the fast of the holy month of Ramadan. The Nazis and other earlier
antisemites had recourse solely to widely circulated print editions. The producers
of “Horseman without a Horse” possessed a far more potent propaganda
medium that combines visual and dramatic power and is capable of
influencing millions possessed of varying degrees of literacy. The potential
of the series for hateful damage was understood by Samir Raafat, a writer
and chronicler of life in Cairo, who wrote: “Once it goes on television it
enters everyone’s living room, and that’s where the danger is. . .You are
spoon-feeding them more hate propaganda.” 71 By contrast, Nabil Osman,
an Egyptian government spokesman, rejected criticism of the series.
Although, like the original Protocols, the series deals with an alleged Jewish
conspiracy for world domination, Osman insisted that “there is a world
of difference” between anger at Israeli policies and antisemitism. He added
that the program had been reviewed by a government broadcasting committee
that vets all television programs for pornography or the “desecration of
religion.” 72
Both Adolf Hitler and National Socialism have long been held in high
esteem in the Arab world and after the war many of the most vicious Nazi
war criminals found a welcome haven in Egypt, Syria, and other Arab
countries, as well as new opportunities to attempt to finish Hitler’s assault
on the Jews. The objective of the Islamists was and remains genocidal.
GAZA 73
On December 18, 2008, Hamas declared an end to the six-month-old
71. Daniel J. Wakin, “Anti-Semitic ‘Elders of Zion’ Gets New Life on Egypt
TV,” New York Times, October 26, 2002, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.
html?res=9F00E1DE1F3CF935A15753C1A9649C8B63 (accessed December 9,
2008).
72. Wakin, “Anti-Semitic.”
73. This essay was largely completed before the publication on September 15,
2009 of the 575-page Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Commission on
the Gaza Conflict, known as the Goldstone Report. The report is not discussed
here. A PDF copy of the report is available at http://www2.ohchr.org/english/