Johan Galtung is a prominent Norwegian academic, the founder of the field of peace studies and author of more than 100 books and more than 1000 scholarly papers. He has also been officially labeled an anti-Semite as a result of recent statements, at least some of which are sensible.

Galtung believes that historical anti-Semitism is based at least partly on Jewish behavior: On the rise of anti-Jewish attitudes in Germany during the 1920s, he says that it was “not unproblematic that Jews had key niches in a society humiliated by defeat at Versailles.”

He distinguishes between predicting anti-Jewish behavior and justifying it: “In no way, absolutely no way, does this justify the atrocities. But it created anti-Semitism that could have been predicted.” In the same way, he argues that medieval pogroms were motivated by the role of Jews in usury: “The Jews played a role in demanding payment from indebted peasants.”

This of course violates the dogma that all anti-Jewish attitudes and behavior are completely irrational—the result of things like Christian religious ideology or individual psychopathology—rather than reality-based conflicts of interest. In the modern world, Galtung claims that “the Jews control U.S. media, and divert for the sake of Israel.”

“Six Jewish companies control 96% of the media,” wrote Galtung. He included the names of journalists, publishers, TV networks, and movie studios, that he claims are controlled by Jews. Media mogul Rupert Murdoch was also included on the list. “He’s not Jewish, but many of the people under him are,” wrote Galtung, in reference to Murdoch. “Many of them are fanatically pro-Israel,” he pointed out. Immediately following these claims, Galtung wrote that “seventy percent of the professors at the 20 most important American universities are Jewish.” Galtung bases his doctrine on an article written by William Luther Pierce, founder of the “National Alliance,” a white supremacist organization.

In a later article defending his position, Galtung provides some great quotes, as from Ruth Wisse of Harvard: “to young Jewish journalists, that they should not ‘see themselves as seekers after wisdom and truth, but as part of the Israeli Defense Forces’ (13/02/12).”

The issue of the loyalty of American Jews is a canard??

Wisse of course is a great example of a Jewish academic ethnic activist, well-known in neoconservative circles and best known for her article “The de-legitimazation of Israel” (see here, p. 23). He also quotes an Israeli professor as defining anti-Semitism as being “more against us than we deserve,” implying that some anti-Jewish animus is deserved.

It’s interesting that Galtung was swayed by Pierce’s writing on the media which was also an important source for me when I wrote the chapter on themes of anti-Semitism in Separation and Its Discontents as well as later when I did research on the topic for the Preface to the Paperback Edition of The Culture of Critique:

A particularly striking example of anti-Semitic writing related to the media control issue appeared recently in the National Vanguard Book Service Catalog (no. 16, November 1995), a publication of William Pierce’s National Alliance. The article combined anti-Semitic themes with a detailed cataloguing of Jewish ownership or managerial control over television, popular music, the print media, major newspapers and chains of smaller newspapers, newsmagazines, and book publishing in the United States.45 The article emphasized the ability of the media to create boundaries of appropriate discussion, as in the case of attitudes regarding Israel, and accused the media of promoting the equality of races and the benefits of immigration and multi-culturalism. The article concludes that By permitting the Jews to control our news and entertainment media we are doing more than merely giving them a decisive influence on our political system and virtual control of our government; we also are giving them control of the minds and souls of our children, whose attitudes and ideas are shaped more by Jewish television and Jewish films than by parents, schools, or any other influence. . . . To permit the Jews, with their 3,000-year history of nation-wrecking, from ancient Egypt to Russia, to hold such power over us is tantamount to race suicide. Indeed, the fact that so many White Americans today are so filled with a sense of racial guilt and self-hatred that they actively seek the death of their own race is a deliberate consequence of Jewish media control. (page 22; italics in text) [see here, p. 56; footnote 45 gives a partial list of Jewish-owned media from Pierce’s work]

On the other hand, the claim that 70% of professors at elite universities are Jewish is an overstatement, but it is difficult to say by how much. I can’t see his evidence for that. A recent article attempting to understand successful intellectual movements noted that around 25% of professors at research institutions in the US are Jewish (see here, p. 66); the percentages are quite a bit higher in the critical areas of the social sciences and humanities that are central to the politicization of the university as a bastion of the multicultural, anti-White left.

In any case, it is safe to say that high percentages of Jews in the social sciences and humanities at elite institutions function not only ensure Jewish influence in the very hierarchical system of academia (see previous link), but also as an effective veto of intellectual movements that are seen as opposed to Jewish interests. These trends have become stronger in the last two decades because non-Whites are being very actively recruited as faculty. As in the political arena, Jewish university faculty have made alliances with non-Whites and with Whites who are predisposed to leftist identity politics, most notably homosexuals and radical feminists. These groups are more than willing to further their individual interests by plugging into the anti-White grievance industry.

Galtung also recommends reading “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” noting that “It is impossible to [read] it today without thinking of Goldman-Sachs” (see here). Galtung has also stated that “it is hard to believe that the Russian secret police was able to be so specific.” However, “while corresponding with Haaretz, he was less decisive, writing ‘I don’t know exactly who wrote the protocols'” (see Haaretz).

In particular, in an article in a Swedish newspaper published June 11, Galtung emphasizes Protocols 12 dealing with domination of the media, and Protocols 20 and 21 which deal with financial control. Reflecting Galtung’s comments on Jewish media control, Protocol 12 lays out a program of strict media censorship and states that

not a single announcement will reach the public without our control. Even now this is attained by us inasmuch as all news items are received by a few agencies …. These agencies will them be entirely ours and will give publicity only to what we dictate to them. If already now we have contrived to possess ourselves of the minds of the goy communities to such an extent that they all come near looking upon the events of the world through the coloured glasses of those spectacles we are putting astride their nose.

Protocol 20 states that “the financial programme … is the crowning and decisive point of our plans.” On his website, Galtung maintains that the point of these protocols is “debt bondage as power.” His link is to a HuffPo article by John Perkins claiming that “Bailouts serve the creditors; they enslave the debtors.” Perkins sees the weak European countries like Greece as victims of predatory capitalism that will in the long run result in public resources being sold to private interests and enslavement of the people. In his newspaper article (published in the flagship of the Bonnier Swedish-Jewish media clan), he states that Jewish investment banks are doing exactly what the Protocols advocated:

The paradox in the argument against me on anti-Semitism is that I warned that U.S. Jews may become scapegoats for the current developments. What senior people with relation to Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs – including the newly inserted leader of the European banks – are doing is in practice a policy that is difficult to distinguish from the very Protocol I mentioned above. The operation and implementation of programs that millions recognize from the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” can have disastrous consequences for Jews, especially Jews in the U.S. – in media and finance. My prediction is that we will see substantial and hefty anti-Semitism in the United States and that there is strong evidence already in Europe. To call a warning about this anti-Semitism falls on its own absurdity and is based on ignorance or malicious interpretation of what I actually said and written. What should be done? Stop the namecalling on Anti-Semitism (which also recently Gunter Grass and Ingmar Karlsson were the objects of). Open wide and above all free debate on these issues. Thirdly, stop pursuing policies that to confusion looks like what the Protocols advocates. [Slightly edited from a translation provided by a correspondent]

These comments fit well with the perspective at TOO. (TOO has 17 articles in the category “Jews and the financial collapse.) Nevertheless, on his website and in a letter to Haaretz (whose contents were left out of the Haaretz article) he very explicitly denies Jewish involvement:

The major actors that currently apply debt bondage are China, Japan and the EU relative to the US, Germany relative to peripheral countries in Europe, like Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Ireland (GIPSI) and the World Bank relative to the World; for a horrifying example, see John Perkins (2004) “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”. That people of Jewish belief and Judaism have nothing to do with any of this goes without saying.

Less credibly, Galtung suggests a possible connection between Anders Breivik and the Mossad (see the Haaretz article). Galtung does not provide any real data on this, and in later correspondence he claims such a connection is “very unlikely.”

What to make of all this? Not surprisingly, Galtung has been attacked as an anti-Semite (e.g., here).

Despite his comment exculpating Jews from the current massive buildup in debt, I get the general impression that Galtung believes that Jews control the media and he believes there is a connection between Jewish behavior and the ongoing economic crisis. Why else discuss Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers as exemplifying behavior predicted in the Protocols?

I guess the surprising thing for me was to see someone of his stature noting connections between current events and the Protocols. Galtung would seem to agree with Henry Ford’s 1921 comment that “The only statement I care to make about the Protocols is that they fit in with what is going on. They are sixteen years old and they have fitted the world situation up to this time” (cited in this edition of the Protocols).

Nevertheless, citing the Protocols is not exactly the way to win friends and influence people, even when you claim you are doing it for the good of the Jews. (Mearshiemer and Walt’s argument that Israel would be better off by being less belligerent didn’t prevent many Jewish critics from labeling their work as a reincarnation of the Protocols, so perhaps it really doesn’t matter if you actually cite them when you say things Jews don’t like.) Certainly, the Protocols are not an important component of contemporary anti-Jewish writing. Also surprising is the reference to Pierce, discredited by Haaretz as a “white supremacist.”

I suspect that there is more to Galtung than he has divulged so far. In his old age (Galtung is 82), he may have fewer inhibitions about saying what he really thinks (a normal aspect of aging), and he certainly has much less to lose than someone with his career ahead of him. Despite all the denunciations, as with Günter Grass (who is the same age as Galtung), the views of people who have achieved prominence and respect count for a great deal. The widely disseminated views of such people go far to erode the confidence of European elites who are terrified of offending Jews. This is all to the good. I look forward to hearing more of his ideas.

The foregoing indicates that I think there is a lot of truth in what Galtung is saying. This reminds me, given our recent interest in Jews and sexualization of culture, that Henry Ford’s The International Jew, written mostly in the early 1920s, also cited the Protocols in its discussion of Jewish media control:

Noting the importance of the theater as part of the plan outlined in the Protocols, The International Jew [TIJ] provides detailed accounts in a series of five articles on Jewish domination of the theater and motion picture industry. “Not only the ‘legitimate’ stage, so-called, but the motion picture industry—the fifth greatest of all the great industries—is also Jew-controlled, not in spots only, not 50 per cent merely, but entirely; with the natural consequence that the world is in arms against the trivializing and demoralizing influences of that form of entertainment as at present managed. As soon as the Jew got control of American Liquor, we had a liquor problem with drastic consequences. As soon as the Jew gained control of the ‘movies,’ we had a movie problem, the consequences of which are not yet visible. It is the genius of the race to create problems in whatever business they achieve a majority. . . . Millions of Americans every day place themselves voluntarily within range of Jewish ideas of life, love and labor; within range of Jewish propaganda, sometimes cleverly, sometimes cunningly concealed” (1/01/1921). “Frivolity, sensuality, indecency, appalling illiteracy and endless platitude are the marks of the American State as it approaches its degeneracy under Jewish control” (1/01/1920). … “Here lies the whole secret of the movies’ moral failure: they are not American and their producers are racially unqualified to reproduce the American atmosphere. An influence which is racially, morally and idealistically foreign to America, has been given the powerful projecting force of the motion picture business, and the consequences are what we see” (2/12/1921). However, TIJ notes that to advocate censorship is construed as anti-Semitism: “Reader, beware! if you so much as resent the filth of the mass of the movies, you will fall under the judgment of anti-Semitism” (2/12/1921). … TIJ quotes a movie poster of the period [~1921]: “‘I refuse to live with you any longer. I denounce you as my wife—I will go to HER—my free-lover.’ Thus speaks the Rev. Frank Gordon in the greatest of all free-love dramas” (2/19/1921). TIJ then notes pointedly but tentatively, “There may be no connection whatever, but behold what is done, and remembering what is written in the Protocols, a question arises. It is written: ‘We have misled, stupefied and demoralized the youth of the Gentiles by means of education in principles and theories, patently false to us, but which we have inspired.’ Protocol 9 ‘We have taken good care long ago to discredit the Gentile clergy’ Protocol 17 (2/19/1921). (Henry Ford and the Jewish Question. The Occidental Quarterly 2(4), Winter 2002/2003: 53-77.)

The American public shared the view that movies were promoting immorality with the result that censorship boards were set up to regulate movie content. All that collapsed in the 1960s, with the results that we see now.

I suspect Galtung would appreciate this analysis.