The first article claiming to unveil Beck's upcoming event in Jerusalem was posted at Ynetnews.com on June 16, and erroneously claimed that Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Newt Gingrich were all planning to attend.  In subsequent articles, the only well known American politicians on the guest list are Joe Lieberman and Herman Cain.

Milbank has defended Sen. Lieberman in the past, and writes that when he heard that Lieberman might be attending the Beck extravaganza in Jerusalem on August 24, "It nearly caused me to plotz." Milbank describes some of Beck's "recent broadcast feats," including,

"hosting a guest on his show who describes as `accurate' the anti-Semitic tract `The Protocols of the Elders of Zion;' likening Reform rabbis to "radicalized Islam;' calling Holocaust survivor George Soros a `puppet master,' a bloodsucker and a Nazi collaborator; touting the work of a Nazi sympathizer who referred to Eisenhower as `Ike the Kike;' and claiming the Jews killed Jesus.'"

Milbank had written a previous article on Beck's descent into conspiracy-mongering and anti-Semitic themes in April, including Beck's hosting of G. Edward Griffin, a Federal Reserve conspiracy theorist.  In addition to these conspiracy theory rants, Beck has promoted the works of two major anti-Semitic writers - Elizabeth Dilling and Eustace Mullins.

Elizabeth Dilling - Defender of "Constitutional Americanism"?

In June 2010, Beck began promoting The Red Network, a 1934 book by Nazi sympathizer and anti-Semitic writer Elizabeth Dilling.  If you've ever stumbled across internet websites that claim to be quoting the Talmud in order to prove that it promotes a Jewish world take-over, chances are you've found the work of Dilling and her second husband, Jeremiah Stokes.  They authored the 1964 Plot Against Christianity, further developing one of the most viciously anti-Semitic themes found throughout history - the idea that Pharisaic Judaism and the Talmud are a departure from biblical Judaism, and that Judaism is a demonic religion which promotes all types of immoral atrocities as well as Jewish world domination.

The ADL's February 2003 report titled "The Talmud in Anti-Semitic Polemics" describes how anti-Semites through history have cherry-picked and falsified details from the Talmud for centuries, in order to demonize Judaism.  One of the primary works cited in the report is Elizabeth Dilling's book, which has now been reprinted on the internet under another title.

The Talmud is an ancient text, compiled by the 5th century from hundreds of years of oral tradition and rabbinical commentary.   Dilling and Stokes pulled details out of context from one of the English translations to make claims that Judaism permits child sacrifice and other atrocities.  Today, Dilling's work is used in a nefarious way on the internet. Websites claiming to be "educational sources for the Talmud" and promoting "Religious Truth and Religious Tolerance" promote Dilling's work as a defender of "Constitutional Americanism."

For instance one webpage states,

"You can help bring about understanding between people of people of different faiths. Download the contents of this site, study it, copy it, and distribute it to your friends, your ministers, and your community leaders. Create mirrors of sections of the site or the entire site. Distribute Come-and-Hear flyers to concerned Americans -- church-goers, voters, military families ... Let's get the show on the road."

Within a few clicks, the website takes you to claims of Jewish ritual killings and plots to take over the world.  One screen shows an American flag with a Jewish star in place of the fifty stars.  The text states,

"The rabbis have designed a one-size-fits-all religion for Gentiles: we bring you news of the Noahide Laws. Those who proclaim Jesus is their Savior will be put to death for idolatry. Congress has already begun putting the foundation in place."

Drawing in the unsuspecting reader is one of the common features of anti-Semitic websites. These are some of the top websites that appear when searching online for "Talmud."

Although, he was promoting another book, this is the author that Glenn Beck encouraged millions to read.

I, along with Talk2action.org co-founder Bruce Wilson and other contributors, have made the argument for years that Christian Zionists also draw in the unsuspecting and introduce anti-Semitic memes in a more subtle, but similarly deceptive way.  

For instance, books like Let My People Go by  Apostle Tom Hess (an apostle in the New Apostolic Reformation),  are presented as "pro-Israel" while simultaneously promoting every imaginable anti-Semitic meme. Hess claims to love Jews as he pleads for them to leave the countries in which they now live, including separating themselves from the "flesh pots" of America. (A nationally-known rabbi and former member of the Israeli Knesset endorsed the book on the back cover.)

The same can be seen in Richard Booker's Blow the Trumpet in Zion, which explains why Jews must endure another and worse holocaust in order to be cured of their sinful nature and accept Jesus, the underlying  theme throughout Christian Zionist media.  This theme was presented in fictional form in Kay Arthur's Israel My Beloved.  All three authors have worked with Israeli leadership including the Knesset's Christian Allies Caucus.

Eustace Mullins

In September 2010, Glenn Beck began promoting the book Secrets of the Federal Reserve by Eustace Mullins. Media Matters has an overview of Mullins' obituaries which described him as a "nationally known white supremacist and anti-Semite."

I do not have a copy of Secrets of the Federal Reserve, however, in a collection of anti-Semitic conspiracy books that I use in my research work, I have other books by Mullins and other similar Federal Reserve conspiracy books.  

Mullins wrote The World Order: Our Secret Rulers, published by the Ezra Pound Institute of Civilization (which was essentially Mullins).  Mullins first published the book in 1985, but I have the 1992 reprint, in which he explains why he had not originally titled the book "New World Order."  Mullins claims that the conspiracy of the "Brotherhood of Death" is 5000 years old, so he had not thought to describe it as "new."  

Mullins traces his version of this conspiracy to the present through Adam Weishaupt and the "Illuminati," the Rothschilds, and to the United Nations, in what is now a widespread grand conspiracy narrative described with the term "New World Order."

In 1991, Pat Robertson followed with his own version of The New World Order, with less overt Jewish references. (See graphic left.) Robertson merged grand conspiracy theories with end times prophecy narratives, creating a bridge for the Religious Right into extremist anti-Semitic and anti-government conspiracy theories.

In chapter nine of Mullins' telling of the conspiracy, he claims that five men rule the world, although he states that there was one position vacant at the time he was writing.  It's not clear if he meant in 1985, or at the time of the reprint in 1992.  

Mullins wrote,

"This Council of Five consists of Baron Guy de Rothschild, Evelyn de Rothschild, George Pratt Shultz, Robert Roosa (from Bush's family firm of Brown Brothers Harriman) and one vacancy, at this writing.  In the past several years, members of the Council who have died include Averill Harriman, Lord Victor Rothschild, and Prince Thurn und Taxis of Regensburg, Germany.  None of them holds public office, buth they choose who shall hold office in the nations.  These five men compromise the apex of the pyramid of power, the World Order."

These are the authors that Glenn Beck recommended to millions on his Fox News broadcast.

Beck's Attacks on George Soros

Glenn Beck continued in November 2010 with his anti-Semitic conspiracies, describing George Soros in terms strikingly similar to the way Dilling and Mullins had described the Rothschilds.  Michelle Goldberg wrote,

"If you know this history, you'll understand why Glenn Beck's two-part 'exposé' on George Soros, whom Beck calls 'The Puppet Master,' was so shocking, even by Beck's degraded standards. The program, which aired Tuesday and Wednesday, was a symphony of anti-Semitic dog-whistles. Nothing like it has ever been on American television before."

Beck's rants about Soros also confirmed that the earlier promotion of Diling and Mullins was not an accident or an aberration.  Furthermore, it would have only taken a few seconds on the internet for Beck or any of his staffers to determine that both Dilling and Mullins were highly controversial figures.

Beck went too far for William Kristol, who wrote the following in the Weekly Standard in February.

"When Glenn Beck rants about the caliphate taking over the Middle East from Morocco to the Philippines, and lists (invents?) the connections between caliphate-promoters and the American left, he brings to mind no one so much as Robert Welch and the John Birch Society. He's marginalizing himself, just as his predecessors did back in the early 1960s."

Note that the John Birch Society had been delivered what was considered a "fatal blow" in 1962 by William F. Buckley, William Baroody, Russell Kirk, and Barry Goldwater, who felt that the conspiracy-minded organization discredited conservatism and was a threat to the future of the emerging "New Right."  See the article "Goldwater, the John Birch Society and Me" written by William F. Buckley and published in Commentary in March, 2008 shortly after his death.  

The John Birch Society survived Buckley's "fatal blow" and, since his death, has been a visible influence in both the Tea Party movement and Glenn Beck's descent into grand conspiracy theories.

See the next installment, which includes David Brog's unbelievable response to Dana Milbank.