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The Usual Suspects
(New York Sun) Ronald S. Lauder - At a number of recent public forums dealing with American foreign policy in New York, the question-and-answer sessions were marked by the following challenges: Individuals stood up and asked if the speakers would comment on the "neo-cons like Perle, Kristol, and Krauthammer who control the Pentagon." They really meant Jews. In an underhanded and deceitful manner, these disingenuous questioners were using code words to say what is not politically correct to utter in polite society. They are hardly original. Back in the 1930s, Gerald L.K. Smith and the Reverend Charles Coughlin preached vociferously about a cabal of "international bankers" and the "money changers" who controlled and manipulated the world's economy in evil ways. Everyone knew who they were really talking about. They meant Jews. Now, when people who talk about the latest "cabals of neo-conservatives" and only mention the Jewish names in the group, it's just the latest way of talking about you-know-who. And when they fail to mention the many non-Jews who feel the same way, and they believe that only Jews have the secret power to manipulate the minds of such softies as Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, Vice President Cheney, and President Bush, they are practicing a time-honored and despicable tradition. They are the political heirs to bigots like Smith and Coughlin. It seems that the Holocaust produced a half-life of tolerance of just about six decades. Now enough time seems to have passed to allow the whispering campaign to begin again. We see it throughout Europe, we read the medievalist writings from the Muslim world, and we even hear it right here in New York. So the next time you are at a dinner party or on a bus or at a public forum and you hear someone talk about those "neo-cons" and only mention the usual suspects while conveniently forgetting names like Fred Barnes, Christopher Caldwell, and Brit Hume, challenge them. Ask them what they really mean. And then walk away. The writer is a former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the president of the Jewish National Fund.