10 Agorot Coin: Conspiracy Theory in Global Politics
Max Pollack
The conflict between Israel and Palestine is complex and has spawned enough debate to fill libraries. One of the weirder claims is that the design of an Israeli coin proves the Israeli government is a colonialist and expansionist power. This theory was debated in academic papers and even made its way to the front of the United Nations. It posited that the old 10 agorot coin pattern shows a ‘map’ of what Israel secretly claims as its territory.
There are many issues with this conspiracy theory. The Sinai Peninsula was returned to Egypt in 1982, this coin was first minted in 1985. If the left most border of the pattern was to be Israel, this ‘map’ pattern would include the Sinai Peninsula that was freely given back to Egypt 3 years prior. The coin itself was based off, like most Israeli coin patterns, ancient Judean coinage. This specific coin was issued to replicate a coin produced for Mattathias Antigonus between 37 - 40 B.C.E.
Some early Zionist thinkers wanted to claim the entire British colonial entity of ‘Mandatory Palestine’, including the Transjordan. However, these leaders like Jabotinsky were overruled by many Practical Zionists like Chaim Weizmann (who became the first President of Israel). The Prime Minister when the coins were first released was Shimon Peres. He was a leftist who shared the Nobel Peace with Yasser Arafat (more on that later). Peres was on the opposite side of the Zionist political spectrum as Jabotinsky. It would make no sense for Peres to allow a coin to have such an expansionist design on it.
Yasser Arafat, the enigmatic leader of the PLO, was controversial. To many Palestinians he was a modern-day George Washington, a strong-willed general fighting against an oppressive force. He even shared a Nobel Peace prize in the 1990s. However, to many others he was a terrorist and brutal despot who stole upwards of a billion dollars from his own people. He was powerful enough to call the UN Security Council together in Geneva to discuss the Israel Palestine conflict in 1990. In this conference, he presented many theories about Israeli aggression (both justified claims and ones like these). This was a minor claim that he made, and US ended up vetoing the resolution made at that meeting anyway. It still represents the mindset that Arafat and his administration was in, where every possible claim against Israel was treated with the same amount of validity, regardless of critical thinking.
When world leaders bring up baseless conspiracy theories, it makes the debate around these issues seem more trivial. Conspiracy theories are still around, countries like Iran still scapegoat Israel or the United States. North Korean state-owned media has become famous for calling all the problems in North Korea ‘American Imperialism’. The coronavirus has caused many world leaders to believe in conspiracy theories. Former-president Donald Trump and people in his administration accused China of many baseless things. The President of Tanzania, John Magufuli, died of COVID-19 while still claiming he solved it with prayer. For effective governing, world leaders cannot believe in conspiracy theories whether the theory is about the relatively unimportant 2 centimeter coin or the world-changing virus.