ESSAY
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False Confessions: How Anti-Zionists Incriminate Zionism
Theodor Herzl, featured in an early example of Zionist graphic art.
THE WISH TO HAVE bad Jews confess, to catch them owning up to their mysterious, murderous crimes, lies behind the relentless torturing of them in medieval legal proceedings to "confess correctly," and the fictions of voluntary and involuntary Jewish admission and self-condemnation that litter the history of antisemitism. The Protocols are merely the most completely realised product of just such a wish; there are many other such products. In the evolution of this trope of self-confessed wickedness, several distinct stages may be identified.
In each stage, the antisemites may be imagined responding to sceptics and people of goodwill: "Look the Jews admit it! They hate Gentiles and want to kill them or rule over them." [1] Here, for example, is a passage from a contemporary Islamist work, available in London: "The Jews admit that fashion is one of the three things they used to westernise our girls ..." [2] The statements attributed to Jews comprise simple acknowledgments of guilt as well as more complex self-incriminating statements. In many instances, the acknowledgments are just false and the statements are fabricated; in other cases, the acknowledgments are given too much weight and the meanings of the statements are misrepresented.
From the Ancient World to the Modern: Four Stages
The Gospels, and in particular Matthew, comprise the first stage. A combination of direct speech and ostensibly authoritative citation or quotation from Jewish teachings serves to incriminate both Judaism and the Jews themselves. The chief priests, the elders, and the Jewish multitude all respond to Pilate's "I am innocent of the blood of this just person," with a ready, glad assumption of responsibility for Jesus' death, "His blood be on us and on our children." It is a confession of guilt, binding on all the generations. Somewhat earlier, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, "Ye have heard that it hath been said, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say ..." (5:43-44). The impression given is that Jesus is quoting from the Hebrew Scriptures. But while the instruction "love thy neighbour" is indeed a quotation from Leviticus (19:18), the instruction "hate thine enemy" is a complete invention. [3]
The statements attributed to Jews comprise simple acknowledgments of guilt as well as more complex self-incriminating statements
The second stage coincides with the first appearance of the blood libel. Its promoters relied in part on reported or mendacious admissions by Jewish converts, [4] and in part on admissions extracted from Jews under extreme torture. The 13th century French monk Thomas Cantipratanus wrote that the Jews use Christian blood as a means of cure, and that it must be true because "I heard that a very learned Jew, who was converted to the faith of our times, [had said words to that effect]." [5]
In his extended polemic against the Jews, Fortalitium Fidei (1464), the Spanish Inquisitor, Alonso Espina, claims that the truth of the blood libel was confirmed to him by a "Jew by the name of Emanuel." In addition to relying upon Theobald of Cambridge, Thomas of Monmouth gives a self-incriminating speech to one of William's murderers:
"... the detection of the truth [of William's death] will bring a very extreme peril upon us all. Indeed, through the fault of our imprudence, and not undeservedly, our race will be utterly driven out from all parts of England, and - what is even more to be dreaded - we, our wives and our little ones will be given as prey to the barbarians, we shall be delivered up to death, we shall be exterminated, and our name will become a reproach to all people for ever." [6]
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