The Adelaide Advertiser, the leading newspaper in South Australia, has been blasted in the federal Parliament for promoting the “Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion” as a guide to current events.
The advice was given in the context of its daily column, “What’s Your Problem?” which referred to the anti-Semitic forgery which originated in Czarist Russia as the best way to for readers to understand President Bush’s “new world order.”
Leaders of South Australia’s Jewish community of about 1,200 have demanded an immediate explanation from the newspaper.
Chris Schacht, a Labor Party senator from South Australia, raised the matter in Parliament.
“I certainly understand why the Jewish community of South Australia is so outraged that the only morning daily newspaper, which has a very large circulation, would allow itself to publish such tripe.
“I hope the Adelaide Advertiser has the courtesy to apologize and retract the disgraceful answer that it gave in a column that, I thought, was not really there to deal with the propagation of anti-Semitic views,” Schacht said.
The only action taken by the Advertiser was to publish a note in the same column that “an answer” which had been published “was irrelevant and incorrect.” It did not mention Schacht’s comments.
The Advertiser column informed readers that “the new world order was the brainchild of Dr. Adam Weishaupt, a German Jew who, in 1876, founded the Order of the Illuminati.”
JEWS LINKED TO REVOLUTION
The column went on to say, “From Illuminism came the ‘Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.’ Although banned and discredited in many countries, these protocols are identical with the aim of communism for the Western world. These originated from the Bolsheviks who brought about the 1917 revolution, of which the leaders mainly were Ashkenazic Jews.”
Representatives of the Advertiser cited as the sources of its information Gary Allen’s “None Dare Call it Conspiracy” and “Tragedy and Hope” by Carroll Quigley.
Allen’s book, a 141-page polemic alleging a conspiracy of international bankers, mostly Jewish, was published in connection with the 1972 U.S. presidential campaign and widely distributed by the extreme right-wing John Birch Society.
Quigley, a respected historian at the University of Maryland, published his book in 1966. A scholarly work not remotely anti-Semitic, it became a favorite of the John Birch Society because it seemed to give credence to the conspiracy theory of history.
Both authors are deceased:
The note in the Adelaide Advertiser said the column would no longer deal with “political or philosophical” issues.
But Jack Hines, president of the South Australian Jewish Community Council, said the matter will not be allowed to rest.
The Advertiser readers must learn of the offense caused and of the history of the “Protocols,” Hines told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
