FBI Twitter account tweets link to files on ‘Protocols of Elders of Zion,’ sparking anger and confusion
Published August 19, 2020
(JTA) — An official FBI Twitter account tweeted a link to a 139-page selection of the bureau’s files on “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” the infamously anti-Semitic early 20th century text that accuses Jews of world domination, sparking online anger and confusion.
The FBI Records Vault sent the tweet on Wednesday afternoon without context, and some Twitter users took it as a promotion of the message in the “Protocols.” However, the Twitter account regularly tweets declassified archival FBI documents.
The FBI did not respond to a request for comment by publishing time.
The files in the link include different copies of the “Protocols” text, which claims it is “Proof that Communism is a Jewish world plot to enslave the gentiles and to seize power during the resulting chaos,” as well as letters to former FBI head J. Edgar Hoover about it.
There is also a 1964 report by the Senate Judiciary Committee calling the text “fabricated” and “crude and vicious nonsense.”
The tweet spurred thousands of responses: Some Twitter users cheered it, while others condemned it.
Bend the Arc, a progressive Jewish advocacy group, wrote on Twitter: “The @FBI is tweeting out the most famous, fabricated antisemitic text with absolutely zero context. This is the same anti-Jewish lie that inspired Hitler and the Nazi regime. Now it’s coming directly from a white nationalist administration.”
Others echoed the concern:
