The Franklin "Prophecy", a classic anti-Semitic canard that falsely claims that American statesman Benjamin Franklin made anti-Jewish statements during the Constitutional Convention of 1787, has found widening acceptance in the Muslim and Arab media, where it has been used to criticize Israel and Jews in news articles and statements.

Long dismissed by American historians as the creation of an American Nazi sympathizer in the early 1930s, the myth has recently been cited by Arab journalists

The Franklin "Prophecy": Modern Anti-Semitic Myth Making

and repeated on Arab news Web sites as evidence that a noted historical figure had "warned" of the "dangers" of Judaism. One Palestinian source stated that Franklin's "prophecy is now coming true with in the U.S. administration," in an apparent a reference to perceived Jewish control of the U.S. government. Other references to the Franklin Prophecy have recently appeared in publications in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

• Akher Sa'a, an Egyptian government weekly, published on January 9, 2002 an article by Salah Al-Din Hilmi, titled "The Jews are Bloodsuckers and Will Yet Conquer America." The article included a photocopy of the Franklin Prophecy document that Hilmi claimed is kept at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.

• Arab News, an English language Saudi daily, published in January 2002 an article by Hassan Tahsin titled "Sharon plan is to destroy PA," that mentions the Franklin Prophecy and quotes a paragraph of the forged document.

• An editorial available on the official Fatah web site, Fatah.net, titled "US-Israeli hegemony," mentioned the Franklin Prophecy, without quoting it directly. The editorial apparently was posted during the term of the Clinton's administration. Fatah, Yasir Arafat's organization, says, "the prophecy is coming true now within the US administration," since, it claims, "Zionists" are effectively controlling it. According to the Fatah, the two "Zionist controlled" governments [Israel's and the United States'] aspire for world domination.

• The Fatah Student Youth Movement [STYM] has the Franklin Prophecy posted on its web site. The "prophesy" appears in three languages: Arabic, English and French, under the title ""the nameless war."

• On February 18, 1998, Shakher Habash [known as Abu Nizar] a member of the Fatah Central Committee, published an article in the Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, an official paper of the Palestinian Authority, entitled "American hegemony; the end of the future." Abu Nizar cited theFranklin Prophecy in his article. He wrote: "This spells doom for the US itself, as was exhorted by the American President Benjamin Franklin {sic} who… claimed that if the Jews were permitted entry into the US, they would take over the country… Doesn't American administration embody Franklin's prophecy these days." In a subsequent interview with IMRA [Independent Media Review Analysis], Abu Nizar claimed he didn't write the article himself, but rather the article represented the Fatah Central Committee's official opinion. Still he had no qualms in repeating the Franklin Prophecy as if it was a well-known fact. Abu Nizar said to IMRA: "The only ones who can stand in front of them [Zionist Jews] to stop them from controlling America are Americans themselves. Remember what Benjamin Franklin said two hundred years ago: 'take care of them.'"