BRUSSELS (EJP)---The European Parliament has refused to distribute to MEPs a book denouncing the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, an anti-Semitic literary forgery.

Produced by the Okhrana, the Russian Czar’s secret police, in 1905, the Protocols accuse the Jews of plotting to rule the world.

Last month, the Transatlantic Institute, a Brussels-based think-tank fostering ties among the EU, Israel and the US, sent copies of “The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion” written by American Will Eisner in a comic-book form, to the 785 members of the European Parliament and their staff.

The “Plot” aims to shed light on the Protocols and the damage and suffering they have caused throughout history, as well as the negative impact they are having today.

The Institute added to the package an 8-page essay written by its director, Emmanuele Ottolenghi, about the Protocols, entitled “The lie that will not die.”

“It was meant to explain the importance of learning the truth about the Protocols due to their ongoing global nefarious influence, especially in the Middle East,” Ottolenghi, told European Jewish Press.

Last Tuesday, Ottolenghi received a letter from an official of the European Parliament’s Presidency services, saying that the EU body is not going to distribute the package “due to the nature of its content”.

Presented as the results of a secret meeting of Jewish leaders laying out 23 protocols for the supposed Jewish takeover of world governments, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" first appeared in Russia in 1905. Divided into three parts, "The Plot" begins as a kind graphical literary biography, tracing the life and influences of the real author of Protocols, Mathieu Golovinski. A seedy, low-level aristocrat, Golovinski distinguished himself with the Tsarist secret police as a lawyer with a talent for fabricating evidence against accused enemies of the state. Eventually exiled to France, he was tapped to produce a document that conservatives in the Tsarist court hoped would smear the nascent revolutionary movement as a Jewish conspiracy.

The refusal to distribute was based on the fact that the parliament don’t allow advertisement and that the book had no relevance with the parliament’s legislative agenda.

The letter added that this was “independent of the positive opinion each of us may have regarding the cause defended by the books”.

Ottolenghi has appealed the Parliament’s decision in a letter to Luxemburg MEP Astrid Lulling, a member of the “College of Quaestors”, the parliament’s body responsible for internal administrative matters, who took the decision.

“I appeal to you in the interest of truth to allow MEPs and their assistants to open the envelopes I sent them, read the material included and judge for themselves,” Ottolenghi said.

“Until today I didn’t received any answer,” he told EJP.

Decision reconsidered ?

Lulling was not available for any comment Thursday afternoon but according to a parliament official she might reconsider her decision next week at the European parliament monthly plenary session in Strasbourg.

Three months ago, the President of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Poettering, had personally ordered bookshops in the parliament in Brussels to remove from sales copies of a novel version in French of the “Protocols of Elders of Zion.”

“Why would the Protocols be easily available in the Parliament, but the refutation of the Protocols would not be allowed to reach MEPs?,” Ottolenghi asked.