Neocon as Code Word

Everyone who regularly reads their newspaper has a ritual, tailor-made to their personal preferences. Some fly immediately to the sports pages. Others start on the front page and read straight on to the end of the paper. Still others start (and possibly end) at the comics page. For me, I habitually begin my daily journey through my local newspaper, The Gainesville Sun, by perusing the editorial page. In particular, I like to read the letters to the editor. A few months ago, I came across one letter (whose writer I don't know the name of) regarding the use of the term "neocon". In it, the writer expressed his view that "neocon" is an anti-Semitic code-word for "Jewish". I nearly fell off my chair when I read that, but being who I am, I felt the need to check out this strange-sounding accusation.

Neoconservatism, as I have come to understand it, was a "reinvention" of conservatism that was designed to throw off the anti-civil rights stigma that "traditional" conservatism had been tagged with. Neoconservatives, you see, were for an inclusive society (in a libertarian sense) where anyone could pull themselves up by their own bootstraps (without the big, bad government's help) and become a Horatio Alger success story. Those who wouldn't do this needed to be prodded into action by denying them government services. However, this anti-government philosophy always seemed to get turned upside-down whenever the discussion shifted to the military. And then it was, in the perspective of neoconservatism, axiomatic that anything that was perceived as being in the interests of the military had to be supported. As for foreign policy, neoconservatives tended to emphasize a tit-for-tat relationship whereby they supported those nations that have consistently stood by U.S. policies, while regarding enemies of our closest allies as our own enemies. As for the religious area of policy discussion, there seems (to me) a bit of division among neoconservatives as to how much traditionalism should be emphasized (as opposed to secularism). Also, it seems that the term "neoconservative" was coined by and on behalf of this political philosophy's adherents as a positive self-designation. Of course, nowadays it's used pejoratively by its critics.

So, where does the coded anti-Semitism come into play regarding "neocon" (the abbreviated form of "neoconservative")? I did some research of the Internet about this and could come up with only one possible explanation for that letter-writer's claim. Apparently, it seems to be common within Middle-Eastern journalistic circles to use the tag "neocon" whenever supporters of Israel are written about (with a negative connotation). Since I don't have any direct personal experience about this, I can't say for sure that this is actually the case. But even if it is, the individual who expressed his objection to the term's use here in America was, in my opinion, completely out of line with his all-encompassing interpretation of the term as being anti-Semitic. I personally have never read or heard "neocon" being used to signify "Jewish" per se, either in a derogatory or any other sense. I'm still scratching my head over this letter. If any of this blog's readers can add any information to help solve this puzzle, I'd appreciate it.