Conrad’s Cartoon on Israeli Spies

The June 8th Paul Conrad cartoon featured an American flag with the 50 stars in the form of the six-pointed Jewish star captioned, “The spies who came into the folds.”

This is not the first time that Conrad has misused the symbol of the Jewish religion. In an obvious allusion to the case of Jonathan Pollard and his wife, Conrad seems to be suggesting that there are other spies, Jewish or Israeli, within our “folds.” This, notwithstanding the fact that the Department of State and the White House have explicitly stated that there is no evidence of a spy ring beyond the Pollards and four unindicted co-conspirators.

Through his use of the Jewish star is Conrad implying that American Jews are somehow implicated in the Pollard affair? Or, in a more charitable interpretation, is he suggesting that dozens of Israelis are in the “folds”? Conrad is dredging up the discredited canard of dual loyalty, a defamatory lie which has no place in the pages of The Times.

One can only wonder why Conrad hasn’t chosen to focus his pen on Jerry Whitworth, John Walker, or Larry Wu-Tai Chin, some of the 13 alleged spies arrested over the past year whose ethnicity and/or religion were not the subject of his ridicule.

DAVID A. LEHRER

Regional Director

Anti-Defamation League

Los Angeles