Sharjah Book Fair Awards Protocols Publisher
A report by Shimon Samuels and Alex Uberti
Over the past two decades, we have been monitoring Arab book fairs – from Casablanca to Cairo, Doha, Riyadh, Sharjah or Muscat – to find publishers who peddle antisemitic texts, thus contributing to the perpetuation of conspiracy theories against the Jews, and animosity towards Israel.
This year’s Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF) decided to give its Best Arabic Publishing House Award to Jordanian Dar Al Ahlia Bookstore. The award was also reported by the Emirates News Agency WAM, and by Khaleej Times, the UAE’s first English language newspaper.
Among other books, Dar Al Ahlia has in its catalogue the updated edition of a classic antisemitic text, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” by Victor E. Marsden (1866-1920), translated by Ahmed Ali Fayyad.
The “Protocols of Zion” was originally conceived and fabricated by the Tsarist Russian Secret Police in 1903, in order to deflect popular discontent towards the Jews. Its publication served to justify antisemitic pogroms and sparked subsequent Jewish migration from the Russian Empire westward and the “second Aliyah” towards the burgeoning Yishuv under Ottoman rule.
Victor E. Marsden was a journalist closely connected to the Russian aristocracy escaping from the Bolshevik revolution and the Soviet civil war. He was all too glad to translate and adapt this hateful forgery, that became also a bestseller in Arab countries once translated by Ahmed Ali Fayyad… and now also thanks to its distribution by Jordanian publisher Dar Al Ahlia.
This is not the first time we noticed Dar Al Ahlia peddling antisemitic books, though we wouldn’t have expected it to receive an award. This clearly demeans the prestige of the Sharjah Book Fair. We will address its sponsors and alert the International Frankfurt Book Fair on this publisher’s defamatory literature.