The fastest-growing American cities

The Fastest-Growing Cities In The U.S.

Lower housing prices, shorter commutes and a more pro-business attitude are driving the cities on our list.

The U.S.' emerging cities are not experiencing the kind of super-charged growth one sees in urban areas of the developing world, notably China and India. But unlike Europe, North America's population is slated to expand by well over 100 million people by 2050--much of this growth in the U.S. and much of it driven by continued immigration.

In the course of the next 40 years, the biggest gainers won't be behemoths like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, but less populous, easier-to-manage cities that are both affordable and economically vibrant.

Americans may not be headed to small towns or back to the farms, but they are migrating to smaller cities. Over the past decade, the biggest migration of Americans has been to cities with between 100,000 and 1 million residents. In contrast, notes demographer Wendell Cox, regions with more than 10 million residents suffered a 10% rate of net outmigration, and those between 5 million and 10 million lost a net 2.4%.

In the U.S. it's all about expanding options. A half-century ago, the bright and ambitious had relatively few choices: It was New York, Chicago or Los Angeles. In the 1990s a series of other, fast-growing cities--San Jose, Calif.; Miami; San Diego; Houston; Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas; and Phoenix--emerged with the capacity to accommodate national and even global businesses.

Now several relatively small-scale urban regions are reaching the big leagues. These include at least two cities in Texas: Austin and San Antonio. Economic vibrancy and growing populations drive these cities, which ranked first and second, respectively, among large cities on Forbes' "Best Places For Jobs" list.

Austin and San Antonio are increasingly attractive to both companies and skilled workers seeking opportunity in a lower-cost, high-growth environment. Much the same can be said about the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina, and Salt Lake City, two other U.S. cities that have been growing rapidly and enjoy excellent prospects.

One key advantage for these areas is housing prices. Even after the real estate bust, according to the National Association of Homebuilders, barely one-third of median-income households in Los Angeles can afford to own a median-priced home; in New York only one-fourth can. In the four American cities on our list, between two-thirds and four-fifths of the median-income households can afford the American Dream.

Advocates of dense megacities often point out that many poorer places, including old Rust Belt cities, enjoy high levels of affordability, while more prosperous regions, such as New York, do not. But lack of affordability itself is a problem; areas with the lowest affordability, including New York, also have suffered from high rates of domestic outmigration. The true success formula for a dynamic region mixes affordability with a growing economy.

Our future cities also are often easier for workers and entrepreneurs alike. Despite the presence of the nation's best-developed mass transit systems, the longest commutes can be found in the New York area; the worst are for people living in the boroughs of Queens and Staten Island. As a general rule, commuting times tend to be longer than average in some other biggest cities, including Chicago and Washington.

In contrast, the average commutes in places like Raleigh or San Antonio are as little as 22 minutes on average--roughly one-third of the biggest-city commutes. Figure over a year, and moving to these smaller cities can add 120 hours or more a year for the average commuter to do productive work or spend time with the family.

In developing this list we have focused on many criteria--affordability, ease of transport and doing business--that are often ignored on present and future "best places" lists. Yet ultimately it is these often mundane things, not grandiose projects or hyped revivals of small downtown districts, that drive talented people and companies to emerging places.

5 Fastest Growing Cities In America

Raleigh-Durham, N.C.
Even in hard times this low-density, wide-ranging urban area has repeatedly performed well on Forbes' list of the best cities for jobs. The area is a magnet for technology firms fleeing the more expensive, congested and highly regulated northeast corridor. One big problem obstructing the region's ascendancy has been air connections. But Delta recently announced a large-scale expansion of flights there from around the country. Population growth will likely be lead by educated millennials seeking affordable housing and employment opportunities. Today the region has 1.7 million residents; the State of North Carolina projects it will grow to 2.4 million by 2025.

Austin, Texas
Austonites tend to be smug, but they have good reason. The central Texas city ranked as the No. 1 large urban area for jobs in our last Forbes survey. Along with Raleigh-Durham, Austin is an emerging challenger for high-tech supremacy with Silicon Valley. The current area's population is 1.7 million and is expected to grow rapidly in the coming decades. Austin owes much both to its public sector institutions (the state government and the main Campus of the University of Texas) and its expanding ranks of private companies--including foreign ones--swarming into the city's surrounding suburban belt.

Salt Lake City, Utah
Once seen as a Mormon enclave, the greater Salt Lake urban area--with roughly 1 million people--has every sign of emerging as a major world player with a wider appeal. The church still plays a critical role, in part by financing a massive redevelopment of the city's now rather dowdy city core. The area's population has doubled since the early 1970s and will grow another 100,000 by 2025 to well over 1.1 million. New companies are flocking to this business-friendly region, particularly from self-imploding California. Increasing national and global connections through Delta's hub will tie this once isolated city closer with the wider world economy.

San Antonio, Texas
Last year this historic Texas metropolis--home to the Alamo--ranked second on our list "best cities for jobs" among larger cities. The region has been growing rapidly to well over 2.1 million. As the economy, particularly in Texas, recovers, an already strong health care sector will be joined by an expanding industrial base. One key factor in San Antonio's favor: stable house prices--even by Texas standards. PMI Mortgage Insurance Co.'s most recent risk index, which is a two-year measure, lists San Antonio as having the lowest risk from falling prices among large Texas cities.

Oklahoma City, Okla.
Oklahoma City--with its business-friendly environment and abundant oil and natural gas reserves--ranked No. 11 in Forbes' list of the best big cities for jobs. A KPMG study named it the least costly metro area to do business among U.S. cities with populations between 1 million and 2 million, and according to the Census Bureau Community Survey, it has the third-shortest commute time among the 52 largest cities. Such factors--plus its exciting new basketball star, Kevin Durant--have definitely attracted plenty of new residents. An article in the Sacramento Bee reported that many Californians were migrating to the former Dust Bowl town in search of jobs and more stable housing prices, and its population, at 1.2 million, is expected to grow 9.8% in the next 10 years, according to the Greater Oklahoma City Partnership.

LATEST & BACK ISSUES

All issues of FMR are listed below, dating back to 1998.

Issues from mid 2005 onwards have dedicated webpages – please click on the cover image to access. For issues published before then, please choose which download option you prefer.

All issues of FMR’s predecessor, the Refugee Participation Network newsletter (RPN), dating back to 1987, are also accessible online. Please click here for the full listing of RPN issues.

If you require print copies of back issues in any language, please email us at rajafreeangel@yahoo.com with the details and we will try to supply them. However, if you require more than just a few, we may ask you to cover postage costs.

To search FMR or RPN, please use the ‘search FMR’ button on the left.

Obama and BP at Risk Over Oil Spill

With failure heaped upon failure in the Gulf of Mexico, the environmental disaster now threatens the viability of not only a vast corporation but also a U.S. Presidency. The buck stops with both—one financially, the other politically. Can either recover?

The markets sent ominous signals about BP's (BP) future once it became clear over the Memorial Day Weekend that the top-kill plugging maneuver had not worked. In the Gulf, hurricane season has arrived, bringing with it the prospect of fierce storms chasing rescue ships to shore and spreading the sickening oil slick farther along the southern coast. A long, grim summer seems all but certain.

Its shares sharply depleted, BP, the largest oil and gas producer in the U.S., suddenly seems vulnerable to a breakup or takeover. In Washington, the Obama team appears to be flailing. Trying to assert some form of authority, the President vowed to bring wrongdoers to justice. The promise seemed mostly like a distraction from frustrating reality: In the short term, President Obama can do little, if anything, to stanch the gushing well.

As much as any other challenge—Wall Street, health care, Afghanistan—the oil spill may define Obama as a leader. He either will find a way to rise to this occasion and make some broader use of the crisis in the Gulf, or it will permanently taint him.

Deficient Oversight

This is a moment to think big and creatively. As distant as risky drilling rigs off Louisiana may seem from the New York financial laboratories where wizard bankers synthesized subprime credit derivatives, Obama could explain the important connections: how, after decades of antiregulatory fundamentalism in Washington, the feckless Minerals Management Service became the Securities & Exchange Commission of the oil business.

It is no coincidence that staff members at both agencies watched pornography on government computers when they should have been monitoring their respective beats. Although corruption and incompetence seem to have run deeper at the soon-to-be-dismantled MMS, the zeitgeist of the two places was similar, according to investigations and congressional hearings: Industry was to be trusted, even when government overseers had no more idea what transpired on the trading floor at Lehman Brothers or Bear Stearns than they did on the ocean floor beneath the Gulf of Mexico.

The question is: What will Obama do about it?

One route to political rehabilitation would be to redefine how government interacts with business. The goal he should articulate is protecting capitalism—and the society it's intended to serve—from the tendency of the profit-minded to go to extremes.

Takeover Prospects

Profit-minded investors, meanwhile, have soured on BP. "We are very negative on the prospects for BP, and this situation has a real possibility of breaking the company," London-based investment bank Arbuthnot Securities said in a June 1 research note. That day the British energy giant's shares dropped as much as 17 percent in London, their biggest one-day decline in 18 years. The company's stock flattened on June 2, closing down 34 percent since the Deepwater Horizon exploded Apr. 20. That erased more than $58 billion (40 billion pounds) from BP's value.

Ivor Pether, who helps manage $9.2 billion at Royal London Asset Management, including BP stock, told Bloomberg News: "We're getting into share price territory where analysts speculate about takeover possibilities, because the loss of market value is much greater than the estimated 'worst case' costs." Buyers haven't surfaced yet, he added, "because the near-term uncertainty is so high." BP spokeswoman Sheila Williams declined to comment.

Obama to visit Gulf for oil spill update

U.S. President Barack Obama is heading back to the Louisiana coast, a day after BP placed a funnel-like cap on its deepwater well that has been spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico for over a month.

This image from video released by BP shows equipment being used in the effort to cap the oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. (BP/Associated Press)

"We did get the cap in place successfully last night," BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles said Friday morning in one of several television appearances.

The next task will be to close four vents in the top of the cap and force as much oil as possible through a riser pipe to a tanker waiting on the water's surface, 1,500 metres above.

The device started pumping oil and gas to a tanker on the surface overnight, but it wasn't clear how much.

"Progress is being made, but we need to caution against over-optimism," said U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the government's point man for the disaster.

The cap, which resembles an inverted funnel with a rubber seal, is not expected to capture all of the oil, Suttles said, but "if we can get it optimized it should get the vast majority." As of Friday morning, the cap was collecting and diverting roughly 191,000 litres a day, he said, though he stressed he wasn't certain.

If the new cap fails — like every other attempt to control the six-week-old leak — the best chance is probably a relief well, which is not expected to be complete until August.

Obama cancels Asia trip

Obama had been scheduled to visit Australia and Indonesia but called off the trip suddenly.

White House officials announced the cancellation late Thursday night without explanation, saying only that Obama "looked forward to rescheduling so that he can visit both countries soon."

Deputy press secretary Bill Burton had said Wednesday the trip was "still on schedule."

Friday's visit marks Obama's third appearance in the region since the leak began after an offshore rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers.

In Louisiana, Obama will meet with Allen and local and state officials. He is also expected to visit several Gulf Coast communities whose livelihoods have been upended by the spill.

Oil washing up in Florida

In Pensacola, Fla., oil blobs were being hurled onto the beach by every crashing wave, leaving patches of "really wet, goopy, glistening" globs – some as big as dinner plates – strewn across the sand, according to the CBC's Paul Hunter.

Sheen, too, was washing up, leaving a "yellowy-green-beige hue to the sand," Hunter said.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist told CNN Friday he had requested additional skimmers from the coast guard to help collect the oil.

To date, "most of our beaches are very clean and untouched," said Crist.

At stake is Florida's booming tourism industry, which brings $60 billion US to the state every year.

"It's incredibly important to try to do everything we can to protect our state," Crist said, adding the concept of oil washing up on shore has made him "angry and frustrated."

Obama has been criticized by some pundits for displaying too little emotion about the spill and for not making an emotional connection to those affected by it. Friday's trip could change that.

In an interview aired Thursday night, the typically unruffled president told CNN's Larry King he was angered by the failure of efforts to stop the flow of oil.

"I am furious at this entire situation because this is an example where somebody didn't think through the consequences of their actions," Obama said.

"This is imperilling an entire way of life and an entire region for potentially years."

BARACK OBAMA IS THE DAJJAL !!!

OK, now you better sit down because you're about to be overwhelmed with irrefutable evidence that the Islamic eschatology is coming true right before our eyes!

The Koran mentions two portents of the coming Day of Judgment:

• "When a slave (lady) gives birth to her master." (This clearly talks about a person whose ancestors were slaves becoming the ruler.)

• "When the shepherds of black camels start boasting and competing with others in the construction of higher buildings." (What's black and replaces the camel? Oil! Who has the highest building in the world? Dubai! And other oil states are already planning to build higher: Kuwait, Qatar, etc.)

What else do we know about the Dajjal?

• He shall be blind in his right eye, which is a figurative description of Obama being a left-wing socialist.

• He shall obtain an army - one cannot do better than becoming a Commander in Chief of the United States!

• He shall make war upon Isa (Jesus in Islam), which is what many right-wingers see Obama now doing.

• He will visit Iraq (as a U.S. commander-in-chief is likely to do), at which time Jesus will return and Imam Mahdi will defeat ad-Dajjal in Palestine. He will travel the whole world in forty days preaching his falsehood but will be unable to enter Makkah or Madinah. (This hasn't happened yet.)

DOJ Lawyers Draft Challenge to AZ Law

A team of Justice Department attorneys reviewing the new immigration law in Arizona has recommended that the U.S. government challenge the state law in federal court, but the recommendation faces an uncertain future and tough scrutiny from others in the Justice Department, sources with knowledge of the process tell Fox News.

Staff attorneys within the Justice Department recently sent higher-ups the recommendation. At the same time, the Justice Department's Civil Division, which oversees the majority of immigration enforcement issues for the department, has drafted a "civil complaint" that would be filed in federal court in Arizona, sources said.

The draft complaint challenges the Arizona law as unconstitutional, saying it is illegal because it impedes federal law, according to the sources, who would not offer any more details about the draft complaint or the arguments made in it.

Two weeks ago, Attorney General Eric Holder told lawmakers such an issue was being considered by Justice Department lawyers reviewing the new law, which outlines and possibly broadens the authority of police to detain those suspected of being in the country illegally.

"We are examining the [Arizona] law and trying to determine if it contravenes the federal responsibility [toward] immigration, whether or not what the Arizona legislature has tried to do is actually preempted by federal law, by federal statutes." he told the House Judiciary Committee on May 13. "The regulation of our borders and the immigration that occurs by crossing our borders is something that is inherently something I believe for the national government to take responsibility for."

He also said it would not be "an extended period of time" before his department decides whether to take action on "preemption" grounds, adding that the Justice Department's "view of the law will be expressed relatively soon."

Two sources with knowledge of the review said the draft complaint, which is now receiving input from the attorney general's office and other Justice Department offices, is not an indication that the Justice Department will ultimately file a lawsuit.

One source said the Arizona law has sparked a "huge battle" with national implications, and the Justice Department is therefore conducting a "slow analysis of all of the options."

If Justice Department higher-ups decide to move forward with the civil complaint, concrete action likely would not take place for some time, according to the source, who predicted it will be "a while before anything would be filed."

"This is going to be slow going," the source said.

Holder echoed that sentiment when he was on Capitol Hill.

"There's a wide variety of things that go into the determination that ultimately we will have to make, and I want to make sure that we take as comprehensive a look as we can before we make what I think is going to be a very consequential decision," he said.

If the Justice Department's Civil Division decides against filing the complaint, others within the Justice Department could step in. In fact, the attorney general's office, the deputy attorney general's office and the Civil Rights Division are all reviewing options.

Holder told lawmakers that the Civil Rights Division will be monitoring the application of the Arizona law, set to go into effect in late July, and could take subsequent action.

"We are concerned about the potential impact that it has and whether it contravenes federal civil rights laws, potentially leading to racial profiling," he said. "We would constantly be monitoring it to see if there are civil rights violations, civil rights concerns, that are generated by the implementation of the law."

He said such monitoring would occur in any case.

Kris Kobach, a Republican law professor who helped author the Arizona law, said the legislation "expressly prohibits racial profiling." As for the issue of preemption, he said the law was "drafted extremely carefully to avoid any preemption problems at all."

Holder said the Justice Department will also be looking at other issues, including "the history that is involved in all of this" and memos or opinions from other offices within the Justice Department.

Holder himself has raised concerns that the Arizona law could push a "wedge" between police officers and the communities they serve, something he's expected to discuss during a meeting with police chiefs, including three from Arizona, at the Justice Department on Wednesday morning.

"Arizona police chiefs are concerned that the new ... law in Arizona will drive a wedge between the community and the police, and will damage the trust that police agencies have worked to establish over many years with members of all their communities," a statement from the police chiefs said.

Others have raised concerns that a 2002 memo from the Office of Legal Counsel could complicate federal challenges to the Arizona law, especially preemption-related challenges. The 2002 memo said state and local police can arrest illegall immigrants for violating federal law.

But after reviewing the Arizona law and options for challenging it, at least some Justice Department lawyers have concluded that the 2002 memo would not pose a problem because, in their view, it is narrow enough in scope to permit a challenge.

As for whether the U.S. government will end up challenging the Arizona law in any form, Holder recently insisted that's still up in the air.

"I don't know exactly ... what we are ultimately going to do with regard to our review of the law," he told lawmakers.

But, he said, there is "certainly an illegal immigration problem that this country needs to face," and he understands the "frustration" of Arizona citizens.

Britney Spears wants to be frozen after death

LOS ANGELES: Britney Spears is doing groundwork to get herself frozen after her death, hoping that she can be brought back to life, sources say.

The singer wants her body preserved in liquid nitrogen, in a process known as 'cryogenic' freezing.

Spears apparently got interested in cryogenic freezing after she heard rumours that Walt Disney has been preserved similarly.

However, Spears can make any huge investment in the company only with her father consent.

Last Supper paintings supersize the food

Has even the Last Supper been supersized?

The food in famous paintings of the meal has grown by biblical proportions over the last millennium, researchers report in a medical journal Tuesday.

Using a computer, they compared the size of the food to the size of the heads in 52 paintings of Jesus Christ and his disciples at their final meal before his death.

If art imitates life, we're in trouble, the researchers conclude. The size of the main dish grew 69 percent; the size of the plate, 66 percent, and the bread, 23 percent, between the years 1000 and 2000.

Supersizing is considered a modern phenomenon, but "what we see recently may be just a more noticeable part of a very long trend," said Brian Wansink, a food behavior scientist at Cornell University.

The study was his idea. For biblical context, he sought help from his brother, Craig Wansink, professor of religious studies at Virginia Wesleyan College in Norfolk, Va., and an ordained Presbyterian minister.

The Bible says the Last Supper took place on a Passover evening but gives little detail on specific foods besides bread and wine.

"There's nothing else mentioned. They don't say there's a fruit cup or carrot cake," though other foods such as fish, eel, lamb and even pork have appeared in paintings through the years, Brian Wansink said.

For the study, he used paintings featured in the book "Last Supper," published in 2000 by Phaidon Press. They include perhaps the most famous portrayal of the meal, by Leonardo da Vinci. Computer technology allowed them to scan, rotate and calculate images regardless of their orientation in the paintings.

Details are in the April issue of the International Journal of Obesity.

The study is "not very meaningful science," said Martin Binks, a behavioral health psychologist and a consultant at Duke University Medical Center. "We have real life examples of the increase in portion size — all you have to do is look at what's being sold at fast-food restaurants."

A more contemporary test would be to analyze portion sizes in Super Bowl commercials, he suggested.

"That would be a much more meaningful snapshot of how this society's relationship to food has changed," Binks said.

America's Most Underwater Housing Markets

Negative equity--what you have when you owe more on your home loan than the property is worth--is one of the defining features of the still-unfolding mortgage crisis. It's a particularly nasty problem because it can lead to all sorts of unpleasant outcomes for the real estate market and the economy as a whole.

Raja Shafaat Rauf 009223364192262

Having negative equity, which is also known as being "underwater" on a mortgage, makes homeowners more likely to end up in foreclosure. It restricts a borrower's ability to refinance or buy another home, which in turn stifles demand for housing. It even reduces the flexibility of the labor market, since underwater homeowners are less willing to leave town to take a different job, says Stan Humphries, the chief economist at Zillow.

"We have never had negative equity like this at the national level in as many different regions as we have now," Humphries says. To get a better sense of the cities with the greatest concentrations of negative equity, Zillow provided U.S. News with data that detail the percentage of mortgage borrowers who are underwater in 142 distinct markets throughout the country. Based on this research, we compiled the following list of America's most underwater housing markets. (Please note: We chose no more than one city per state.)

1. Las Vegas

Las Vegas
© Getty Images

Las Vegas was ground zero for the housing market's historic boom and bust. Loose lending standards and speculative fervor helped send home prices surging more than 104 percent from 2002 to their 2006 peaks, according to Moody's Economy.com.

"We all knew in our hearts it was unsustainable and there had to be a correction," says Larry Murphy, the president of SalesTraq. That correction came as the housing bubble popped and the economy tanked: Home prices in Las Vegas fell more than 56 percent from 2006 to the third quarter of 2009. This steep decline has pulled a vast swath of mortgage borrowers underwater.

"If you bought a home in Las Vegas since 2004 up to about 2007, whatever you bought--I don't care if you bought a big house or a little house, in a great neighborhood or a crummy neighborhood--it's worth about half what you paid for it," Murphy says.

More than 81 percent of single-family home mortgages in Las Vegas had negative equity in the fourth quarter of 2009, according to Zillow. And it may take 20 years for some of these home values to climb back to the levels they hit at the peak of the housing boom, Murphy says.

2. Merced, Calif.

The housing crisis that has rocked Merced, Calf., was initially linked to rising property values in relatively nearby metropolitan areas like San Francisco. As real estate became increasingly unaffordable in the bigger cities, many would-be home buyers started exploring options in smaller markets, such as Merced.

"A number of people said, 'Hey, I have got a couple of choices: I can get a 1,000-foot condo in San Francisco, or I can move east and I can get myself a fairly significant home for the same price,' " says John Walsh, the president of DataQuick. Although this trend increased real estate demand in Merced, prices appreciated even faster as exotic mortgage products and investor interest hit the market.

Area home prices jumped nearly 129 percent from 2002 to 2006. But after the euphoria subsided, home prices crashed more than 72 percent through the third quarter of 2009. This rapid deflation dragged about 64 percent of single-family home mortgages underwater by the fourth quarter of 2009, according to Zillow. Walsh says it could be 10 to 20 years before Merced home prices reach former peak levels.

3. Phoenix

Phoenix
© Getty Images

As exotic mortgage loans and investor demand swept through the market, home prices in Phoenix jumped more than 101 percent from 2002 to their 2006 peaks. Jay Butler, an associate professor of real estate at Arizona State University, says many people who purchased property in Phoenix during the boom felt pressure to get in on the action. "You had [real estate] seminars all over the place, you had 'flip this' shows," Butler says.

"You were constantly being fed a barrage that if you weren't actively participating in this thing, you were not only denying yourself a great bit of wealth but your kids [and] your grandkids." But once the music stopped, the housing market in Phoenix was clobbered. Home prices dropped more than 52 percent from their peaks through the third quarter of 2009. And as of the fourth quarter of last year, nearly 62 percent of single-family home mortgages were underwater, according to Zillow.

4. Orlando

Like other cities in Florida, the Orlando market saw tremendous demand from investors during the first half of the previous decade. Some were looking to cash in on the appreciating market through short-term property flipping, while others were buying properties for vacation homes. Although the market attracted interest from buyers in the Midwest and Northeast, condo developers also marketed developments specifically to foreign buyers, particularly in the United Kingdom, says Jack McCabe, CEO of McCabe Research & Consulting.

"It's almost like [the British] were setting up another colony in the United States," McCabe says. Abetted by easy credit, such demand helped send home prices surging by more than 102 percent from 2002 to the market's peak in 2006. But the subsequent crash has been painful. The nearly 48 percent drop from the peak through the third quarter of 2009 has pulled 58 percent of single-family home mortgages in Orlando underwater, according to Zillow. And McCabe isn't optimistic about a quick rebound. "For the condo or condo conversion owner, literally they may carry them out feet first before they ever see that property reach 2006 values," he says.

5. Greeley, Colo.

With 45 percent of single-family mortgages underwater, the Greeley, Colo., market has among the higher concentrations of negative equity in the nation. The predicament is rooted in an increase in smaller homes built during the first half of the previous decade that were purchased with risky, subprime mortgages, says Randy Moser, the president of the Greeley Area Realtor Association.

"If you had a 550 credit score, you could maybe even get 110 percent financing [and] roll in your closing costs," he says. But after many of these buyers began falling behind on their payments, area foreclosures surged, and home prices fell about 15 percent through the third quarter of 2009. "We were probably one of the first counties in the United States that went into the foreclosure mess," Moser says.

6. Bend, Ore.

Bend
© Getty Images

From 2002 to early 2007, home prices in Bend, Ore., jumped by 99 percent, as second-home buyers and retirees were drawn to this community. But after the housing bubble popped and economy eroded, home prices have slumped some 32 percent through the third quarter of 2009. "We are seeing homes that people bought for $2.5 million now selling for under $1 million," says Kathy Ragsdale, the CEO of the Central Oregon Association of Realtors.

Ragsdale says the initial phase of the downturn was triggered by evaporating demand from second-home buyers. But more recently, as unemployment has surged, many residents have found themselves unable to make their mortgage payments. Today, more than half of the residential property transactions in Bend are distressed sales, Ragsdale says.

"It's huge when somebody stands up in a meeting and says, 'I have a home for sale, and by the way, it's not a short sale,' " she says. As of the fourth quarter of last year, roughly 41 percent of single-family home mortgages were underwater, according to Zillow.

7. Minneapolis-St. Paul

Although this area is far removed from the cities most closely associated with the housing bubble, home prices in Minneapolis-St. Paul inflated significantly in the early part of the previous decade. Real estate values increased nearly 34 percent from 2002 to 2006. Brad Fisher, the president of the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors, says subprime lending played a key role.

"Outside of the coasts, the Minneapolis-St. Paul area was one of the higher areas [of] subprime loans," Fisher says. "We have paid a price because of that." The subsequent 29 percent price decline through the third quarter of 2009 pulled nearly 39 percent of single-family home mortgages underwater by the fourth quarter of 2009, according to Zillow.

8. Memphis

Memphis
© Getty Images

Home prices in Memphis didn't surge as aggressively as other markets during the boom. But pockets of subprime mortgages--coupled with a modest slump in prices over the past three years--have created a notable concentration of negative equity. Real estate values increased about 12 percent from 2002 to 2006, but prices then fell nearly 18 percent through the third quarter of 2009.

And as of the fourth quarter of last year, roughly a third of all single-family home mortgages were underwater, according to Zillow. Glenn Moore, the president of the Memphis Area Association of Realtors, argues that the negative equity is concentrated in a small part of the overall market. "It is limited to mostly suburban areas and maybe some areas where there was maybe some predatory lending going on," Moore says.

9. Cleveland

Home prices in Cleveland increased 13 percent from 2002 to 2006 but then fell nearly 16 percent through the third quarter of 2009. "There was a little bit of overinvestment in housing, and the economy started weakening," says Celia Chen of Moody's Economy.com. "[Cleveland] entered recession before the rest of the U.S., and I think weak economic conditions have pulled down home prices." Exposure to subprime lending has also played a role in the real estate market's decline. Roughly 32 percent of single-family home mortgages were underwater as of the fourth quarter of last year, according to Zillow.

10. Grand Rapids, Mich.

Real estate values in Grand Rapids, Mich., increased 15 percent from 2002 to 2005 and then fell about 13 percent through the third quarter of last year. As of the fourth quarter of 2009, roughly 29 percent of single-family home mortgages were underwater, according to Zillow. The weakness in the housing market is linked to the area's deteriorating economy, Chen says.

Capital Talk – 22 March 2010

Black Water in Pakistan

American Issues Project

Meray Mutabiq – 15 March 2010

Meray Mutabiq – 14 March 2010

Bohemian Club (Latest Issues)

Holocaust Videos (Latest Issues)

ZIONIST Protocols (Latest issues)

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (Latest issues)

A reproduction of the 1905 Russian edition by Serge Nilus, appearing in Praemonitus Praemunitus (1920).

Antisemitism
History · Timeline · Resources
Manifestations
Anti-globalization related · Arab Christian · Islamic · Nation of Islam New · Racial · Religious Secondary · Academic · Worldwide Incidents 2008–2009
Allegations
Deicide · Blood libel · Ritual murder Well poisoning · Host desecration Jewish lobby · Jewish Bolshevism Kosher tax · Dreyfus affair Zionist Occupation Government Holocaust denial
Antisemitic publications
On the Jews and Their Lies Protocols of the Elders of Zion The International Jew Mein Kampf The Culture of Critique series
Persecutions
Expulsions · Ghettos · Pogroms Jewish hat · Judensau Yellow badge · Spanish Inquisition Segregation · The Holocaust Nazism · Neo-Nazism
Opposition
Anti-Defamation League Community Security Trust EUMC · Stephen Roth Institute Wiener Library · SPLC · SWC UCSJ · SCAA · Yad Vashem
Categories
Antisemitism · Jewish history
v • d • e

a series of articles

The Protocols of the (Learned) Elders of Zion (Russian: "Протоколы сионских мудрецов" or "Сионские протоколы") is one of many titles given to a text purporting to describe a plan to achieve global domination by the Jewish people. Following its first public publication in 1903 in the Russian Empire, numerous independent investigations have repeatedly proved the writing to be a hoax; notably, a series of articles printed in The Times in 1921 revealed that much of the material was directly plagiarized from earlier works of political satire unrelated to Jews. Nevertheless, some people continue to view it as factual, especially in parts of the world where antisemitism, anti-Judaism, or anti-Zionism are widespread.^[1] It is frequently quoted and reprinted by anti-Semites, and is sometimes used as evidence of Jewish conspiracy, especially in the Middle East.^[2]

The Protocols are considered one of the most important examples of contemporary conspiracy theory literature, and take the form of an instruction manual to a new member of the "Elders", describing how they will run the world through control of the media and finance, replacing the traditional social order with one based on mass manipulation. The work was popularized by those opposed to the Russian communist revolutionary movement, and was disseminated further after the Russian Revolution of 1905, but achieved worldwide popularity after the 1917 Bolshevik October Revolution, when the idea that Bolshevism was a Jewish conspiracy for world domination sparked far-ranging interest in the Protocols. It was widely circulated in the West in the 1920s and 1930s, and while continued usage of the Protocols as a propaganda tool substantially diminished with the defeat of the Nazis in World War II, it still has currency in the arsenal of contemporary anti-Semitism.

Contents [hide] 1 Publication history 1.1 The Protocols in the West 2 Images of early editions of the Protocols 2.1 Title variations 3 The twenty-four protocols 4 Plagiarism Sources and Origin of the Plot 5 Literary forgery 6 Origin of content 6.1 Maurice Joly 6.2 Hermann Goedsche 7 First Russian language editions 7.1 Pavel Krushevan 7.2 Comparison between The Protocols and Maurice Joly's Dialogue in Hell 7.3 Conspiracy references 8 Historical publications, usage, and investigations 8.1 Emergence in Russia 8.1.1 Krushevan and Nilus editions 8.1.2 Stolypin's fraud investigation, 1905 8.2 The Russian Revolution and the spread of the Protocols, 1920s 8.3 English language imprints 8.4 The Times exposes a forgery, 1921 8.5 German language publications 8.6 Middle East 9 The Berne Trial, 1934–1935 9.1 South Africa 9.2 Germany 9.2.1 Fascist 10 Contemporary imprints 11 See also 12 References 13 Further reading 14 External links 14.1 Notable web resources

Publication history

The Protocols appeared in print in the Russian Empire as early as 1903. The anti-Semitic tract was published in Znamya, a Black Hundreds newspaper owned by Pavel Krushevan, as a serialized set of articles. It appeared again in 1905 as a final chapter (Chapter XII) of a second edition of Velikoe v malom i antikhrist (The Great in the Small & Antichrist), a book by Serge Nilus. In 1906 it appeared in pamphlet form edited by G. Butmi.^[1]

These first three (and subsequently more) Russian language imprints were published and circulated in the Russian Empire during 1903–1906 period as a tool for scapegoating Jews, blamed by the monarchists for the defeat in the Russo-Japanese War and the 1905 Russian Revolution. Common to all three texts is the idea that Jews aim for world domination. Since The Protocols are presented as merely a document, the front matter and back matter are needed to explain its alleged origin. The diverse imprints, however, are mutually inconsistent. The general claim is that the document was stolen from a secret Jewish organization. Since the alleged original stolen manuscript does not exist, one is forced to restore a purported original edition. This has been done by the Italian scholar, Cesare G. De Michelis in 1998, in a work which was translated into English and published in 2004, where he treats his subject as Apocrypha.^[2][3] As fiction in the genre of literature the tract was further analyzed by Umberto Eco by his word, Foucault's Pendulum in 1988, and in English translation in 1989, and in 1994 in chapter 6, "Fictional Protocols", of his Six Walks in the Fictional Woods.

As the 1917 Russian Revolution unfolded, causing white Russians to flee to the West, this text was carried along and assumed a new purpose. Until then The Protocols remained obscure;^[4] it was now an instrument for blaming Jews for the Russian Revolution. It was now a tool, a political weapon used against the Bolshevikis who were depicted as overwhelmingly Jews, allegedly executing the "plan" embodied in The Protocols. The purpose was to discredit the October Revolution, prevent the West from recognizing the Soviet Union, and bring the downfall of Vladimir Lenin's regime. In that regard, The Protocols failed to achieve their aim.^[2][3]

It was first published in the United States in the English language in 1919 as two newspaper articles in the Philadelphia Public Ledger by journalist Carl W. Ackerman, but all references to Jews were replaced by references to Bolsheviks and Bolshevism.^[5]

The book has two titles in Russian: Сионские протоколы (Sionskiye protokoly, lit. "Protocols of Zion") and Протоколы сионских мудрецов (Protokoly sionskih mudretsov, lit. "Protocols of the Sages of Zion"). In other languages it has been published with many titles. For example, the first American English language edition, published in Boston in 1920 by Small, Maynard & Company, has the full title: The Protocols and World Revolution Including a Translation and Analysis of the "Protocols of the Meetings of the Zionist Men of Wisdom". Only pages 11 through 73 contain the so-called Protocols. The word "Zion" in this edition is not used and the word "Zionist" is employed. This contrasts to a similar practice of the prior Russian editions. For example, in 1905, Sergei Nilus' book The Big within the Small, on the imminent arrival of the anti-Christ, the Protocols constituted the final twelfth chapter.

A serialized commentary was subsequently published in the United States in 1920, under the title, The International Jew, in The Dearborn Independent, a newspaper owned and controlled by Henry Ford. And these series were subsequently collected and published as four pamphlets, under the same general title as in the newspaper.

The Protocols in the West

In the United States The Protocols are to be understood in the context of the Red scare, the First Red Scare (1917–1920). The text circulated in 1919 in American government circles, specifically diplomatic and military, in typescript form, a copy of which is archived by the Hoover Institute.^[6] It also appeared in 1919 in the Public Ledger as a pair of serialized newspaper articles. But all references to "Jews" were replaced with references to Bolsheviki as an expose by the journalist and subsequently highly respected Columbia University School of Journalism dean.^[7]

By 1920 several diverse editions and imprints appeared in the Russian language, but it appeared that year in English translation under different titles; in London, published by Eyre & Spottiswoode, under the title The Jewish Peril; in Boston, published by Small, Maynard & Company, under the title The Protocols and World Revolution; and in New York City, published by The Beckwith Company, under the slogan or lead title Praemonitus Praemunitus. Each was originally edited anonymously, but the editors are now known to have been George Shanks, Boris Brasol, and Harris A. Houghton, respectively, working on three independent imprints. The last two American editions are translations from Serge Nilus' 1917 fourth edition, titled It Is Near, At the Door (title translation by Boris Brasol).

Also in 1920 two commentaries or secondary sources were published in Great Britain and the United States, titled The Cause of World Unrest, associated with the name of H. A. Gwynne (editor of The Morning Post), and The International Jew, associated with the name of Henry Ford.

In 1923 there appeared an anonymously edited pamphlet by the Britons Publishing Society, a successor to The Britons, an entity created and headed by Henry Hamilton Beamish. This imprint was allegedly a translation by Victor E. Marsden, who died in October 1920.^[6]

The text is difficult to pin down in any language because it is published by different antisemitic entities, with diverse front matter and back matter, edited anonymously, alleging that the manuscript was stolen from a secret Jewish organization in Paris, France. But the original manuscript has never been found. There is no "authorized" or "standard" edition. The plot, summarized and derived from these different editions, involves a conspiracy theory alleging that Jews, and/or Masons, are aiming to "take over the world", or achieve "world domination". Most versions, however, substantially involve "protocols", or minutes of a speech given in secret involving Jews who are organized as Elders, or Sages, of Zion,^[8] and underlies 24 protocols that are supposedly followed by the Jewish people. The Protocols has been proven to be a literary forgery and hoax as well as a clear case of plagiarism.^{[9][10][11][12][13]}

Images of early editions of the Protocols

The front piece of a 1912 edition utilizing occult symbols.	It is Near, At the Door, An edition from 1917 by Serge Nilus.	Texts drawn The Protocols appeared in the Public Ledger as anti-Bolshevik propaganda in 1919.	1920 edition from New York.
A 1934 edition by the Patriotic Publishing Company of Chicago.

Title variations

Main article: Protocols of the Elders of Zion (versions)

Diverse editions or imprints have been published under a variety of titles. Alphabetically, the list of titles used includes:

• The Illuminati Protocols
• It Is Near, At The Door
• The Jewish Peril
• The Non-Extent Manuscript
• Praemonitus Praemunitus
• The Protocols and World Revolution
• Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion
• Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion
• Protocols of the Meetings of the Zionist Men of Wisdom
• Protocols of the Sages of Zion
• Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion
• Protocols of Zion
• The War Against the Kingship of Christ
• Warrant for Genocide
• Waters Flowing Eastward

The twenty-four protocols

Houghton's 1920 imprint enumerated the twenty-four protocols in that table of contents as follows:

1. The Basic Doctrine—"Right Lies in Might"
2. Economic War and Disorganization Lead to International Government
3. Methods of Conquest
4. The Destruction of Religion by Materialism
5. Despotism and Modern Progress
6. The Acquisition of Land and the Encouragement of Speculation
7. A Prophecy of a World-wide War
8. The Transitional Government
9. The All-embracing Propaganda
10. Abolition of the Constitution; Rise of the Autocracy
11. The Constitution of Autocracy and Universal Rul
12. The Kingdom of the Press and its Control
13. Turning Public Thought from Essentials to Non-Essentials
14. The Destruction of Religion as a Prelude to the Rise of the Jewish God
15. Utilization of Masonry; Heartless Suppression of Enemies
16. The Nullification of Education
17. The Fate of Lawyers and the Clergy
18. The Organization of Disorder
19. Mutual Understanding Between Rulers and People
20. The Financial Program of Destruction and Construction
21. Domestic Loans and Government Credit
22. The Beneficence of Jewish Rule
23. The Inculcation of Obedience
24. The Jewish Ruler

Plagiarism Sources and Origin of the Plot

Based on evidence repeatedly corroborated by British, German, Ukrainian, Polish and Russian sources over a 75 year period, The Protocols, far from being a document "stolen" from Jews as it was claimed to be, was in fact a forgery fabricated sometime between 1895 and 1902 (exact date unknown) by Matvei Golovinski, a Russian journalist and member of the antisemitic Святое Братство ("Holy Brotherhood")^{[citation needed]}. Also implicated in creation of the forgery was Pyotr Ivanovich Rachkovsky, head of the Paris office of the Russian Secret Police during the same time period.^{[14] [15]}

The source material for the forgery was the synthesis of an 1864 book of fiction by French political satirist Maurice Joly entitled Dialogue aux enfers entre Machiavel et Montesquieu (Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu) and a chapter from a 1868 book of fiction entitled "Biarritz" by antisemitic German novelist Hermann Goedsche, which had been translated into Russian in 1872.^[16]

Joly's book was written as a veiled attack on the political ambitions of Napoleon III. In the book, Napoleon III was represented by Machaivelli^[17] and was depicted as secretly plotting to rule the world. Joly's book was based on a popular novel of the time entitled Les Mystères Du Peuple (The Mysteries of the People) by Eugène Sue, which also described a secret conspiracy to rule the world although, in Sue's version, the plotters were the Jesuits. Neither the Joly version of the story nor the original Sue version of the story contained any reference to the Jews.

In creating The Protocols forgery, Golovinski and Rachkovsky took Joly's novel and changed the plotters a third time. The original fictitious story by Eugene Sue of secret world domination by the Jesuits, which was then changed by Maurice Joly to the story of a secret plot for world domination by Napoleon III, was now changed by Golovinski and Rachkovsky to the story of a secret plot for world domination by the Jews. The forgery was named The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and published as a recently "discovered" document. The current belief is that the forgery was initiated and authorized by factions of the Russian aristocracy opposed to the political and social reforms initiated by the previous Tsar (Alexander II). The document was fabricated with the goal of convincing the antisemitic Tsar Nicholas II to oppose any additional reforms, since all reforms would play into the hands of this just uncovered "secret Jewish plot". Once the Russian Revolution began in 1905, however, the use of the forgery changed. The same group, now part of the White Movement, disseminated the document during their 18 year fight against the Bolsheviks in an attempt to link the Bolsheviks and the Red Army to the fictitious conspiracy.

Literary forgery

The forgery contains numerous elements typical of what is known in literature as a "False Document": a document that is deliberately written to fool the reader into believing that what is written is truthful and accurate even though, in actuality, it is not.^[2] It is also one of the best-known and most-discussed examples of literary forgery, with analysis and proof of its fraudulent origin going as far back as 1921.^[18] The forgery is also an early example of "Conspiracy Theory" literature.^[19] Written mainly in the first person plural,^[20] the text embodies generalizations, truisms and platitudes on how to take over the world: take control of the media and the financial institutions, change the traditional social order, etc. It does not contain specifics.

Origin of content

The text borrows or plagiarizes multiple sources.

Maurice Joly

Elements of the text in the Protocols were plagiarized from the 1864 book, Dialogue aux enfers entre Machiavel et Montesquieu (Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu), written by the French satirist Maurice Joly. Joly's work attacks the political ambitions of Napoleon III using Machiavelli as a diabolical plotter in Hell as a stand-in for Napoleon's views^[21]. In the book, Machiavelli describes a series of steps that he intends to take to become ruler of the world.

Since it was illegal to criticize the monarchy, Joly had the pamphlet printed in Belgium, then tried to smuggle it back into France. The police confiscated as many copies as they could, and it was banned. After it was traced to Joly, he was tried on April 25, 1865, and sentenced to 15 months in prison at Sainte-Pelagie. Joly committed suicide in 1878.

The Joly book was in turn based on material borrowed from a popular novel of the time by Eugène Sue titled The Mysteries of the People, in which those plotting to rule the world were the Jesuits instead of Napoleon III. Neither the Joly book nor the Sue book mentioned either Jews or Masons.

Hermann Goedsche

Hermann Goedsche's 1868 novel, Biarritz (in English as To Sedan) contributed another idea that may have inspired the scribe behind the Protocols. In the chapter, "The Jewish Cemetery in Prague and the Council of Representatives of the Twelve Tribes of Israel", Goedsche wrote about a nocturnal meeting between members of a mysterious rabbinical cabal, describing how at midnight, the Devil appears before those who have gathered on behalf of the Twelve Tribes of Israel to plan a "Jewish conspiracy". His depiction is also similar to the scene in Alexandre Dumas, père's Joseph Balsamo, where Cagliostro and company plot the affair of the diamond necklace. With Biarritz appearing at about the same time as The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu, it is possible that Goedsche was inspired by the ideas in Joly's pamphlet, especially in detailing the outcome of the cabal's secret meeting.^[22]

"Goedsche was a postal clerk and a spy for the Prussian secret police. He had been forced to leave the postal work due to his part in forging evidence in the prosecution against the Democratic leader Benedict Waldeck in 1849."^[23] Following his dismissal, Goedsche began a career as a conservative columnist, while also producing literary work under the pen name Sir John Retcliffe.^[24] In 1871, the story was being presented in France as serious history. In 1872, "The Jewish Cemetery in Prague", translated into Russian, appeared in St. Petersburg as a separate pamphlet of purported non-fiction. François Bournand, in his Les Juifs et nos contemporains (1896), reproduced a speech from the chapter as that of a Chief Rabbi "John Readcliff".

First Russian language editions

Pavel Krushevan

Pavel Krushevan published The Protocols in Russia in 1903

Serge Nilus, Published The Protocols in 1905

The book typically consists of 24 to 27 paragraphs or sections titled "Protocols". It has been published and distributed in many forms: manuscript, periodical, booklet, book and via the internet. It was first edited and disseminated to the public in 1903 by Pavel Krushevan, the instigator of the Kishinev pogrom. It was re-published in 1906-1907 by the Union of the Russian People, a part of the pro-Tsarist antisemitic group The Black Hundreds, as a pamphlet titled Enemies of the Human Race. The pamphlet was published specifically to blame the Jews for Russia's defeat in the Russo-Japanese War. It was similarly used in opposition to the Russian Revolution of 1905, the October Revolution (1917), and the peace negotiations at the end of World War I, becoming known worldwide during the 1919-1920 period when it was widely circulated in the West.

Comparison between The Protocols and Maurice Joly's Dialogue in Hell

The Protocols 1–19 closely follow the order of Maurice Joly's The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu 1–17. In some places, the plagiarism is incontrovertible to any observer, trained or not. For example:

Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu	The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
How are loans made? By the issue of bonds entailing on the Government the obligation to pay interest proportionate to the capital it has been paid. Thus, if a loan is at 5%, the State, after 20 years, has paid out a sum equal to the borrowed capital. When 40 years have expired it has paid double, after 60 years triple: yet it remains debtor for the entire capital sum. — Montesquieu, Dialogues, p. 209	A loan is an issue of Government paper which entails an obligation to pay interest amounting to a percentage of the total sum of the borrowed money. If a loan is at 5%, then in 20 years the Government would have unnecessarily paid out a sum equal to that of the loan in order to cover the percentage. In 40 years it will have paid twice; and in 60 thrice that amount, but the loan will still remain as an unpaid debt. — Protocols, p. 77
Like the god Vishnu, my press will have a hundred arms, and these arms will give their hands to all the different shades of opinion throughout the country. — Machiavelli, Dialogues, p. 141	These newspapers, like the Indian god Vishnu, will be possessed of hundreds of hands, each of which will be feeling the pulse of varying public opinion. — Protocols, p. 43
Now I understand the figure of the god Vishnu; you have a hundred arms like the Indian idol, and each of your fingers touches a spring. — Montesquieu, Dialogues, p. 207	Our Government will resemble the Hindu god Vishnu. Each of our hundred hands will hold one spring of the social machinery of State. — Protocols, p. 65

In addition to mentioning Vishnu, improbable in the Jewish religious literature, and the lack of Talmudic citations that would be expected in it, textual references to the "King of the Jews", the semi-messianic idea that carries strong connotations of Jesus, further suggest the author was not well-versed in Jewish culture, as this term has been avoided in the Judaic tradition since the schism between Judaism and Christianity.^[25]

In 1921, when Philip Graves published articles in The Times which showed the writers of the Protocols had plagiarized from the Dialogue, it became clear that the Protocols was not an authentic document.^[26]

Conspiracy references

The idea that the Freemasons formed part of an anti-Christian conspiracy, either separate from or in association with Jews, long predated the spreading of The Protocols. In the late 18th-early 19th centuries, Freemasonry was popular (as were many fraternal organizations), and its most significant opponent, the Roman Catholic Church, opposed its open support for freedom of religion and enlightenment ideals.

After some interaction with Masons, a Scottish natural philosopher John Robison became an enthusiastic conspiracy theorist and expanded on his impressions in his 1797 pamphlet Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe, carried on in the secret meetings of Freemasons, Illuminati and Reading Societies. He did not take into account that French masons were members of several mutually hostile factions and that many of them were executed by their rivals. Robison's work does not mention Jews. Jesuit priest Augustin Barruél had some contact with Robison, but extended the notion to include Jews.^{[citation needed]} He had accused the Jews of founding the Bavarian Illuminati.^{[citation needed]}

According to Daniel Pipes,

The great importance of The Protocols lies in its permitting antisemites to reach beyond their traditional circles and find a large international audience, a process that continues to this day. The forgery poisoned public life wherever it appeared; it was "self-generating; a blueprint that migrated from one conspiracy to another."^[27] The book's vagueness — almost no names, dates, or issues are specified — has been one key to this wide-ranging success. The purportedly Jewish authorship also helps to make the book more convincing. Its embrace of contradiction — that to advance, Jews use all tools available, including capitalism and communism, philo-Semitism and antisemitism, democracy and tyranny — made it possible for The Protocols to reach out to all: rich and poor, Right and Left, Christian and Muslim, American and Japanese.^[28]

Pipes notes that the Protocols emphasizes recurring themes of conspiratorial antisemitism: "Jews always scheme", "Jews are everywhere", "Jews are behind every institution", "Jews obey a central authority, the shadowy 'Elders'", and "Jews are close to success."^[29]

The Protocols is widely considered influential in the development of other conspiracy theories, and reappears repeatedly in contemporary conspiracy literature, such as Jim Marrs' Rule by Secrecy. Some recent editions proclaim that the "Jews" depicted in the Protocols are a cover identity for other conspirators such as the Illuminati,^[30] Freemasons, the Priory of Sion, or even, in the opinion of David Icke, "extra-dimensional entities." Other groups that believe in the authenticity of the Protocols have claimed that the book does not depict the way that Jews think and act, but only those belonging to an alleged secret elite group of Zionists, and that the "Elders" were not Rabbis, but secular Zionist leaders.

Historical publications, usage, and investigations

Emergence in Russia

The chapter "In the Jewish Cemetery in Prague" from Goedsche's Biarritz, with its strong antisemitic theme containing the alleged rabbinical plot against the European civilization, was translated into Russian as a separate pamphlet in 1872.^[16] In 1921 Princess Catherine Radziwill gave a private lecture in New York. She claimed that the Protocols were a forgery compiled in 1904-1905 by Russian journalists Matvei Golovinski and Manasevich-Manuilov at the direction of Pyotr Rachkovsky, Chief of the Russian secret service in Paris.^[15] Golovinski worked together with Charles Joly (son of Maurice Joly) at Le Figaro in Paris. This account, however, contradicts basic chronology of Protocols publication, as they were already published in 1903 in the newspaper Znamya. Catherine Radziwill was previously convicted of forging Cecil Rhodes' signature on a promissory note. She also authored numerous gossip and propaganda books. In 1935 Radziwill repeated her statement as a witness at the Berne Trial.

In 1944 German writer Konrad Heiden identified Golovinski as an author of the Protocols.^[30] Radziwill's account was supported by Russian historian Mikhail Lepekhine, who published his findings in November 1999 in the French newsweekly L'Express.^[31] Lepekhine considers the Protocols a part of a scheme to persuade Tsar Nicholas II that the modernization of Russia was really a Jewish plot to control the world. Ukrainian scholar Vadim Skuratovsky offers extensive literary, historical and linguistic analysis of the original text of the Protocols and traces the influences of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's prose (in particular, The Grand Inquisitor and The Possessed) on Golovinski's writings, including the Protocols.^[32]

In his book The Non-Existent Manuscript, Italian scholar Cesare G. De Michelis studies early Russian publications of the Protocols. The Protocols were first mentioned in the Russian press in April 1902, by the Saint Petersburg newspaper, Novoye Vremya (Новое Время - The New Times). The article was written by a famous conservative publicist Mikhail Menshikov as a part of his regular series "Letters to Neighbors" ("Письма к ближним") and was titled "Plots against Humanity". The author described his meeting with a lady (Yuliana Glinka, as it is known now) who, after telling him about her mystical revelations, implored him to get familiar with the documents later known as the Protocols; but after reading some excerpts Menshikov became quite skeptical about their origin and did not publish them.^[33]

Krushevan and Nilus editions

The Protocols were published at the earliest, in serialized form, from August 28 to September 7 (O.S.) 1903, in Znamya, a Saint Petersburg daily newspaper, under Pavel Krushevan. Krushevan had initiated the Kishinev pogrom four months earlier.^[34]

The Protocols enjoyed another wave of popularity in Russia after 1905, when progressive political elements in Russia succeeded in creating a constitution and a parliament, the Duma. The reactionary Union of the Russian People, known as the Black Hundreds, together with the Okhrana, the Tsarist secret police, blamed this liberalization on the "International Jewish conspiracy," and began a program of disseminating the Protocols^{[citation needed]} as propaganda to support the wave of pogroms that swept Russia in 1903–1906 and as a tool to deflect attention from social activism. It also was of interest to Tsar Nicholas II, who was fearful of modernization and protective of his monarchy, and he presented the growing revolutionary movement as part of a powerful world conspiracy and blamed the Jews for Russia's problems^{[citation needed]}.

In 1905, Sergei Nilus published the full text of the Protocols in Chapter XII, the final chapter (pages 305–417), of the second edition (or third, according to some sources) of his book, Velikoe v malom i antikhrist, which translates as "The Great within the Small: The Coming of the Anti-Christ and the Rule of Satan on Earth". He claimed it was the work of the First Zionist Congress, held in 1897 in Basel, Switzerland.^[35] When it was pointed out that the First Zionist Congress had been open to the public and was attended by many non-Jews, Nilus changed his story, saying the Protocols were the work of the 1902–1903 meetings of the Elders, but contradicting his own prior statement that he had received his copy in 1901:

In 1901, I succeeded through an acquaintance of mine (the late Court Marshal Alexei Nikolayevich Sukotin of Chernigov) in getting a manuscript that exposed with unusual perfection and clarity the course and development of the secret Jewish Freemasonic conspiracy, which would bring this wicked world to its inevitable end. The person who gave me this manuscript guaranteed it to be a faithful translation of the original documents that were stolen by a woman from one of the highest and most influential leaders of the Freemasons at a secret meeting somewhere in France — the beloved nest of Freemasonic conspiracy.^[36]

Nilus also may have had personal motivations for publishing them. Some have alleged that at this time he was trying to gain influence with the Royal Family. This was, it is claimed, part of a faction fight against Papus and Nizier Anthelme Philippe at the Tsarist court (Indeed, Papus was accused in 1920 of having forged the Protocols to discredit Philippe).

Stolypin's fraud investigation, 1905

A subsequent secret investigation ordered by Pyotr Stolypin, the newly appointed chairman of the Council of Ministers, came to the conclusion that the Protocols first appeared in Paris in antisemitic circles around 1897–1898.^[37] When Nicholas II learned of the results of this investigation, he requested: "The Protocols should be confiscated, a good cause cannot be defended by dirty means."^[38] Despite the order, or because of the "good cause", numerous reprints proliferated.^[34]

The Russian Revolution and the spread of the Protocols, 1920s

After the Russian Revolution, factions connected to the White movement used the Protocols to perpetrate hatred and violence against the Jews. The idea that the Bolshevik movement was a Jewish conspiracy for world domination, plus the fact that some top Bolsheviks, particularly Leon Trotsky and most of the top ranking revolutionaries were Jews, sparked worldwide interest in the Protocols.

English language imprints

On October 27 and 28, 1919, the Philadelphia Public Ledger published excerpts of an English language translation as the "Red Bible," deleting all references to the purported Jewish authorship and re-casting the document as a Bolshevik manifesto.^[39] The author of the articles was the paper's correspondent at the time, Carl W. Ackerman, who later became the head of the journalism department at Columbia University. On May 8, 1920, an article^[40] in The Times followed German translation and appealed for an inquiry into what it called "uncanny note of prophecy".

Great Britain

The first British English language edition of the Protocols was published in 1920 in London. The full title was The Jewish Peril. Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion; the translator has been subsequently discovered to be George Shanks. The most widespread English translation of the Protocols is credited (by its anonymous editor(s)) to a British correspondent for The Morning Post in Russia, Victor E. Marsden. That anonymous source further claims that Marsden was imprisoned by the Bolsheviks in the Peter and Paul Fortress, subsequently released, and returned to England. Marsden, prior to his death on October 28, 1920, had allegedly translated Chapter XII of Nilus' 1905 book on the coming of the Anti-Christ, a copy of which was at hand in the British Museum. His name does not appear in the first British imprint, issued by Eyre & Spottiswoode Ltd., nor in the second, issued by The Britons. It only first pops up in the edition issued one or two years later, in the imprint issued by the Britons Publishing Society.

In the single year of 1920, five editions sold out in England.

United States

Title page of 1920 edition from Boston.

In the United States, Henry Ford sponsored the printing of 500,000 copies, and, from 1920 to 1922, published a series of antisemitic articles titled "The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem", in The Dearborn Independent, a newspaper he owned. In 1921, Ford cited evidence of a Jewish threat: "The only statement I care to make about the Protocols is that they fit in with what is going on. They are 16 years old, and they have fitted the world situation up to this time."^[41] In 1927, however, the courts ordered Ford to retract his publication and apologize; he complied, claiming his assistants had duped him. He remained an admirer of Nazi Germany, however.^[42]

In 1934, an anonymous editor expanded the compilation with "Text and Commentary" (pages 136–141). The production of this uncredited compilation was a 300-page book, an inauthentic expanded edition of the twelfth chapter of Nilus's 1905 on the coming of the anti-Christ. It consists of substantial liftings of excerpts of articles from Ford's antisemitic periodical The Dearborn Independent. This 1934 text circulates most widely in the English-speaking world, as well as on the internet. The "Text and Commentary" concludes with a comment on Haim Weizman's October 6, 1920 remark at a banquet: "A beneficent protection which God has instituted in the life of the Jew is that He has dispersed him all over the world". Marsden, who was dead by then, is credited with the following assertion:

It proves that the Learned Elders exist. It proves that Dr. Weizmann knows all about them. It proves that the desire for a "National Home" in Palestine is only camouflage and an infinitesimal part of the Jew's real object. It proves that the Jews of the world have no intention of settling in Palestine or any separate country, and that their annual prayer that they may all meet "Next Year in Jerusalem" is merely a piece of their characteristic make-believe. It also demonstrates that the Jews are now a world menace, and that the Aryan races will have to domicile them permanently out of Europe.^[43]

This quote occurs on page 138. On the previous page, the nameless commentator has the following: "There has been recently published a volume of Theodor Herzl's Diaries, a translation of some passages of which appeared in the Jewish Chronicle of July 14, 1922". Accordingly, the commentary must have been written at least two years after Marsden's death.

The Times exposes a forgery, 1921

The Times exposed the Protocols as a forgery on August 16–18, 1921

In 1920-1921, the history of the concepts found in the Protocols was traced back to the works of Goedsche and Jacques Crétineau-Joly by Lucien Wolf (an English Jewish journalist), and published in London in August 1921. But a dramatic expose occurred in the series of articles in The Times by its Constantinople reporter, Philip Graves, who discovered the plagiarism from the work of Maurice Joly.

According to writer Peter Grose, Allen Dulles, who was in Constantinople developing relationships in post-Ottoman political structures, discovered 'the source' of the documentation ultimately provided to The Times. Grose writes that The Times extended a loan to the source, a Russian émigré who refused to be identified, with the understanding the loan would not be repaid.^[44] Colin Holmes, a lecturer in economic history of Sheffield University, identified the émigré as Michael Raslovleff, a self-identified antisemite, who gave the information to Graves so as not to "give a weapon of any kind to the Jews, whose friend I have never been."^[45]

In the first article of Graves' series, titled "A Literary Forgery", the editors of The Times wrote, "our Constantinople Correspondent presents for the first time conclusive proof that the document is in the main a clumsy plagiarism. He has forwarded us a copy of the French book from which the plagiarism is made."^[46] The New York Times reprinted the articles on September 4, 1921.^[47] In the same year, an entire book^[48] documenting the hoax was published in the United States by Herman Bernstein. Despite this widespread and extensive debunking, the Protocols continued to be regarded as important factual evidence by antisemites.

German language publications

The first and "by far the most important"^[49] German translation was by Gottfried Zur Beek (pseudonym of Ludwig Müller von Hausen). It appeared in January 1920 as a part of a larger antisemitic tract^[50] dated 1919. After The Times discussed the book respectfully in May 1920 it became a bestseller. "The Hohenzollern family helped defray the publication costs, and Kaiser Wilhelm II had portions of the book read out aloud to dinner guests".^[51]

Alfred Rosenberg's 1923 edition^[52] "gave a forgery a huge boost".^[51]

Middle East

In the 1920s, the Protocols occasionally appeared in the Arab polemics linking Zionism and Bolshevism.^{[citation needed]} The first Arabic translations were made from the French by Arab Christians.^{[citation needed]} The first translation was published in Raqib Sahyun, a periodical of the Roman Catholic community of Jerusalem, in 1926.^{[citation needed]} Another translation made by an Arab Christian appeared in Cairo in 1927 or 1928, this time as a book. The first translation by an Arab Muslim was also published in Cairo, but only in 1951.^[53]

The Berne Trial, 1934–1935

Main article: Berne Trial

In 1934, Dr. Alfred Zander, a Swiss Nazi, published a series of articles accepting the Protocols as fact. This led to a civil lawsuit (what has come to be known as the Berne Trial) in the Amtsgericht (district court) of Berne on October 29, 1934. The plaintiffs (the Swiss Jewish Association and the Jewish Community of Berne) were represented by Georges Brunschvig and Emil Raas. Working on behalf of the defense was German anti-Semitic propagandist Ulrich Fleischhauer. On May 19, 1935, the defendants (Theodore Fischer and Silvio Schnell) were convicted of violating a Bernese statute prohibiting the distribution of "immoral, obscene or brutalizing" texts.^[54] The court declared the Protocols to be forgeries, plagiarisms, and obscene literature. Judge Walter Meyer, a Christian who had not heard of the Protocols earlier, said in conclusion:

I hope, the time will come when nobody will be able to understand how in 1935 nearly a dozen sane and responsible men were able for two weeks to mock the intellect of the Bern court discussing the authenticity of the so-called Protocols, the very Protocols that, harmful as they have been and will be, are nothing but laughable nonsense.^[34]

Vladimir Burtsev, a Russian émigré, anti-Bolshevik and anti-Fascist who exposed numerous Okhrana agents provocateurs in the early 1900s, served as a witness at the Berne Trial. In 1938 in Paris he published a book, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: A Proved Forgery, based on his testimony.

On November 1, 1937 the defendants appealed the verdict to the Obergericht (Cantonal Supreme Court) of Berne. A panel of three judges acquitted them, holding that the Protocols, while false, did not violate the statute at issue because they were used as a means of political propaganda.^[54] The presiding judge's opinion stated, though, that the forgery of the Protocols was not questionable and expressed regret that the law did not provide adequate protection for Jews from this sort of literature. The court imposed the fees for both trials on the defendants.^[55] This decision gave grounds for later allegations that the appeal court "confirmed authenticity of the Protocols" which is contrary to the facts. A view favorable to the pro-Nazi defendants is reported in an appendix to Leslie Fry's Waters Flowing Eastward.^[56] A more scholarly work on the trial is in a 139 page monograph by Urs Lüthi.

South Africa

In an August 1934 case in Grahamstown, South Africa, a court case took place in which Rev. A. Levy sued three Greyshirts leaders (Johannes von Strauss, von Moltke, David Hermanus Olivier) and Harry Victor Inch for defamation because they published a document said to have been stolen from the Western Road Synagogue in Port Elizabeth where Rev. Levy was Minister. The document, proven at the trial to be a forgery, alleged to set out the plans of the Jews to obtain world domination on the lines of the notorious Protocols. The court awarded Rev. Levy damages totalling £1,775 (about $8,875 at the time or about $130,000 in 2005 dollars) - £1000 against Inch, £750 against Moltke and £25 against Olivier. Inch was also sentenced to six years in prison for perjury. Nahum Sokolow appeared as a witness at the trial. In what is believed to be a legal first, the Protocols was also declared to be a forgery during the trial.

Germany

The Protocols also became a part of the Nazi propaganda effort to justify persecution of the Jews. It was made required reading for German students. In The Holocaust: The Destruction of European Jewry 1933–1945, Nora Levin states that "Hitler used the Protocols as a manual in his war to exterminate the Jews":

Despite conclusive proof that the Protocols were a gross forgery, they had sensational popularity and large sales in the 1920s and 1930s. They were translated into every language of Europe and sold widely in Arab lands, the United States, and England. But it was in Germany after World War I that they had their greatest success. There they were used to explain all of the disasters that had befallen the country: the defeat in the war, the hunger, the destructive inflation.^[57]

Hitler refers to the Protocols in Mein Kampf:

... To what extent the whole existence of this people is based on a continuous lie is shown incomparably by the Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion, so infinitely hated by the Jews. They are based on a forgery, the Frankfurter Zeitung moans and screams once every week: the best proof that they are authentic. [...] the important thing is that with positively terrifying certainty they reveal the nature and activity of the Jewish people and expose their inner contexts as well as their ultimate final aims.^[58]

Hitler endorsed it in his speeches from August 1921 on, and it was studied in German classrooms after the Nazis came to power. At the height of World War II, the Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels proclaimed: "The Zionist Protocols are as up-to-date today as they were the day they were first published."^[51] In Norman Cohn's words, it served as the Nazis' "warrant for genocide".

Fascist

While the first edition of the Protocols (1921) did not have much success, in the wake of the growing alliance between Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, the Protocols were re-published in Italy in 1937 by Giovanni Preziosi with an introduction by Julius Evola.

Contemporary imprints

Main article: Contemporary imprints of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

While there is continued popularity of The Protocols in nations from South America to Asia, since the defeat of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy in WWII, governments or political leaders in most parts of the world have generally avoided claims that The Protocols represent factual evidence of a real Jewish conspiracy. The exception to this is the Middle East, where a large number of Arab and Muslim regimes and leaders have endorsed them as authentic. Past endorsements of The Protocols from Presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat of Egypt, one of the President Arifs of Iraq, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, and Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya, among other political and intellectual leaders of the Arab world, are echoed by 21st century endorsements from the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Ekrima Sa'id Sabri, and Hamas, to the education ministry of Saudi Arabia.^[59]

See also

Wikisource has original text related to this article: The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion

Pertinent concepts

• Black propaganda
• List of conspiracy theories
• Psychological projection
• World government
• New World Order (conspiracy theory)

Individuals

• Heidegger and Nazism

Related or similar texts

• A Racial Program for the Twentieth Century
• The permanent instruction of the Alta Vendita
• Tanaka Memorial
• The Report from Iron Mountain
• Protocols of Zion (film)

• Further reading

• Stephen Eric Bronner: A Rumor About the Jews: Reflections on Antisemitism and the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion (Oxford University Press, 2003) ISBN 0-19-516956-5
• Eisner, Will: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. ISBN 0393060454
• Hagemeister, Michael: "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: Between History and Fiction - Hagemeister 35 (1103)". http://ngc.dukejournals.org/cgi/reprint/35/1_103/83. Retrieved 2009-09-15.
• Hagemeister, Michael. The 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion' and the Myth of a Jewish Conspiracy in Post Soviet Russia, in: Brinks, Jan Herman; Rock, Stella; Timms, Edward (ed.): Nationalist Myths and Modern Media. Contested Identities in the Age of Globalization, London / New York 2006, pp. 243–255.
• Jacobs, Steven Leonard and Weitzman, Mark: Dismantling the Big Lie: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. (2003) ISBN 0-88125-785-0
• Luthi, Urs: Der Mythos von der Weltverschwörung: die Hetze der Schweizer Frontisten gegen Juden und Freimaurer, am Beispiel des Berner Prozesses um die "Protokolle der Weisen von Zion" (Basel: Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1992), ISBN 3719011976 9783719011970, OCLC: 30002662
• Katz, Steven; Landes, Richard (eds.): Reconsidering 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion': 100 Years After the Forgery, New York 2008 (in print)
• Kis, Danilo: The Book Of Kings And Fools in The Encyclopedia of the Dead, 1989 (Faber and Faber)
• Goldberg, Isaac: The so-called "Protocols of the Elders of Zion": a Definitive Exposure of One of the Most Malicious Lies in History (Girard, Kansas, Haldeman-Julius Publications, 1936).
• Stauber, Roni; Webman, Esther (eds.): The Protocols of the Elders of Zion - The One-Hundred Year Myth and Its Impact, Tel Aviv 2008 (in print)
• Timmerman, Kenneth R.: Preachers of Hate: Islam and the War on America (2003), Crown Forum. ISBN 1-4000-4901-6
• Wolf, Lucien: The Myth of the Jewish Menace in World Affairs or, The Truth About the Forged Protocols of the Elders of Zion (New York, The Macmillan company, 1921).
• The truth about "The Protocols" : a literary forgery (1921) The original Times articles exposing the book collected in a contemporary pamphlet.
• Bernstein, Herman (1921): The History of a Lie at Project Gutenberg As page images at archive.org Internet Archive: Details: The history of a lie, "The protocols of the wise men of Zion"; a study Archive.org. Retrieved on 2009-02-01