Our secret is out. The Jews control the world! We own the media. Politicians do our bidding. Wall Street is a Jewish shtetl. Hollywood moguls make secret deals in Yiddish. Jewish professors propagandize their students to support Israel. Jewish puppet masters pull the strings and their compliant puppets simply follow.

If you troll the Internet, these are the absurd allegations that you will find repeated over and over again. It reminds me of the old joke about the two Jews in a Vienna café in the 1930s. One of them is reading the Yiddish newspaper, while the other one peruses Der Stürmer, the Nazi propaganda organ. The Jew reading the Yiddish newspapers asks accusingly “Why are you reading that Nazi rag?” The other Jew responds: “I used to read the Yiddish newspaper, and all it talked about was how Jews are suffering, being fired from their jobs, being subject to pogroms, and starving. Now I read in the Nazi newspaper that we control the world. I prefer the good news!”

Since the publication of the 19th-century Czarist forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the primary tropes of anti-Semitism have been the dual canards that Jews control the world and that all the problems of the world are attributed to the Jews. There is an old Polish proverb that says, “If there is a problem, the Jews must be behind it.”

The reality, of course, is quite different. Jews are subject to anti-Semitism in many parts of the world, and increasingly on university campuses. Israel is condemned at the UN more than all the other nations of the world combined. There is poverty among many Jews, particularly the elderly. Holocaust denial is rampant on the Internet. The percentage of Jews in the world, already infinitesimal, is shrinking, while intermarriage and assimilation among Jews is increasing.

Whatever successes Jews have achieved have been as a result of their hard work, creativity, and determination. Consider Israel, a nation which until recently had few natural resources or inherent wealth. Yet it has risen to the top of the high-tech world through its inventions and innovations. No country in history has contributed more to the world in proportion to its population and its time as a nation than the State of the Jewish People. Should Jews be blamed for Israel’s success?

It is true that Jews are represented in large numbers in various professionals such as the academy, finance, and the media. That is not because they are given preferential treatment. It is because they have proved to be successful at these enterprises. Should they be blamed for that?

The essence of anti-Semitism is to believe that everything positive about Jews should be interpreted negatively. Consider the hard-left’s absurd accusation against Israel of “pinkwashing.” Those who accuse Israel of pinkwashing acknowledge that Israel has among the best records in the world of supporting the rights of gay, lesbian, and transgender people. Certainly they have the best record in the Middle East.

Yet the anti-Semites who accuse Israel of pinkwashing claim that the only reason Israel supports the rights of sexual minorities is to cover up – to whitewash, or in this case pinkwash – how badly they treat the Palestinians. This perverse accusation fails to consider the reality that Israel supports these rights because it is the right thing to do. Indeed, within Israeli society those who support gay rights are more likely to support Palestinians than those who oppose these rights. But these facts are irrelevant to the anti-Semites who believe that the Nation State of the Jewish People can do nothing good, except for bad reasons.

The other lie that follows from “The Jews control the world” is that individual Jews who happen to have succeeded and are in positions of authority always work together on behalf of Jewish control of the world. The reality is quite different.

Consider, for example, the alleged Jewish control of the media. It is true that Jewish families have ownership interests in the New York Times and other newspapers. But those newspapers don’t promote Jewish “control” of the world. Indeed, they are often at odds with Jewish public opinion. The same is true of Wall Street, Hollywood, and academia, where individual Jews hold diverse opinions on issues of Jewish concern. But to the anti-Semite, all Jews are the same and their goal – to control the world – is identical.

So, no – Jews do not control the world. Many contribute to the world through their individual accomplishments, but that is true of members of every religion, ethnic, and racial group. The world would be a poorer place – intellectually, artistically, charitably and in many other ways – if there were no Jews. Many European countries that were complicit in ridding themselves of their Jewish populations have come to regret their actions. So let’s make sure that Europe’s remaining Jews remain safe from the anti-Semites who spread the lie of Jewish control of the world.

Alan Dershowitz (@AlanDersh) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. He is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus, at Harvard Law School and author of "Trumped up! How Criminalizing Politics is Dangerous to Democracy." This article was originally published by the Gatestone Institute.

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