March 10th, 1995

By Leonard Fein

Pat Robertson says he's not an antisemite.

Invited by Abe Foxman of the ADL to "clarify" the views expressed in his best-selling book of 1991, "The New World Order," Robertson tells us (via York Times) he "never intended to offend" his Jewish colleagues.

Jews both liberal and conservative would do well to examine quite carefully the language of both Robertson's book and his denial.

The book: There's a "tightly knit cabal" that dates back to 1776 "whose goal is nothing less than a new order for the human race under the domination of Lucifer and his followers." It all began when a Bavarian professor, one Adam Weishaupt, founded a secret society called "The

Order of the Illuminati." His immediate purpose was to take over the Freemasons, and for that he depended on rich Jews. The Illuminated Freemasonry moved its headquarters to Frankfurt, which was controlled by the Rothschilds, and suddenly "new money . . . poured into the Frankfurt lodge, and from there a well-funded plan for world revolution was carried forth." Operating secretly in France and Germany, offspring "revolutionary societies" commissioned the writing of the Communist Manifesto .

And so forth, familiar to anyone who's had the misfortune to delve into standard antisemitic literature. In Roberston's version, there's not much that's wrong with the world that can't be traced to the Satanic perversity of the "European bankers" and, since they dispatched members of their families to America, now Wall Street, too. From the Lincoln's assassination

(John Wilkes Booth was the cabal's hireling) to the Russian revolution to the Cold War (and the Gulf War, too), we've all been their pawns.

Or their co-workers: In a different book - 'The New Millennium' - Robertson inveighs against the "cosmopolitan, liberal secular Jews" who seek "unrestricted freedom for smut and pornography and the murder of the unborn." Because of them, the United States will one day abandon Israel; American Christians (though warned by their leaders against antisemitism) will rise up against these evil people.

Michael Lind, on whose immensely valuable exploration (in The New York Review of

Books) of Robertson's writings I draw here, asks pointedly, what conservatives "particularly

Jewish neo-conservatives" - would say "if Louis Farrakahn had written a book that made the

New York Times best-seller list and claimed that Jewish financiers like the Rothschilds, Paul

Warburg, and Jacob Schiff were leaders in a two-century old Freemason-Communist-Banker conspiracy to exploit American tax-payers and the members of the armed forces in America by stirring up deficit-financed wars."

Pat Robertson is no longer some quirky player on the fringes of the American political system. He's the founder of the Christian Coalition, an increasingly powerful presence in

American politics. The Coalition doubtless includes many people who would be horrified to learn that they're associated with an antisemite, but the fact that they're not clued in doesn't lessen their organization's potential for mischief (a restrained word, under the circumstances). Bluntly, the Christian Coalition was founded by a man who believes that "The part that Jewish intellectuals and media activists have played in the assault on Christianity may very possibly prove to be a grave mistake." Whether that's a warning or a threat, it is aimed directly at liberal

Jews.

Robertson denies any antisemitic intent. His book, he asserts, "does not embrace a conspiracy theory of history, and it certainly is not anti-Semitic." He "regrets" that anyone thinks that "European bankers" refers to Jews. The objections to his book come from "the radical left in

America desperately looking for an opportunity to discredit the role of religious conservatives in politics." He is, he says, enthusiastically pro-Israel. (As if one cannot be both antisemitic and pro-Israel; as if he does not discredit himself.)

Perhaps Robertson is sincere in his repudiation of antisemitism. He may simply not get it.

But it doesn't much matter whether he does or doesn't hate Jews. We are not required to establish motive before issuing the indictment: antisemitic or not, the policies Pat Robertson and his

Christian Coalition propose - notably, but not exclusively, their views on church-state relations - are bad for the Jews, so bad that they amount to de facto antisemitism. We oughtn't waste time worrying about the label; it's the policies that matter. Because Robertson and his associates seek to change the ground rules of the American system, because they are opposed to pluralism, they warrant vigorous opposition. Period.

Change the ground rules? In Massachusetts, the Christian Coalition is backing a legislative proposal that would require advance parental consent before schoolchildren can be taught "morally or religiously sensitive topics," defined as including "human sexuality, contraception, abortion, sexually transmitted diseases, sexual or physical abuse, marriage, divorce or family life, gender and sexual relationships, moral decision-making methods, suicide, euthanasia, coping with or understanding death or other forms of personal loss or grief, self- esteem, emotional or psychological health, religious practice or belief."

So it begins. And where it ends, nobody knows. (It would be frightfully upsetting, but not very surprising, were they one day to propose that Jews ought not be hired as teachers in the public schools.) Learning to live together in as chaotically heterogenous a society as ours is not easy, and I feel for those who want none of it. Their frustrations deserve our sympathetic attention. But, whether or not they are provably antisemitic, their proposals endanger us. That is why it is so worrisome to behold the line of mainstream conservatives seeking the Christian

Coalition's approval and endorsement; that is why it is so shameful to see Jewish conservatives make apologies for it.