Given the outlandishness and New World Order scope of the claims, some critics have had difficulty accepting that Icke himself believes his own writing; he has been accused of using "reptiles" as an anti-Semitic code word. But when journalist Jon Ronson asked Icke to clarify his comments, Icke stuck to his extraterrestrial guns. In Ronson's 2001 book, "Them: Adventures With Extremists," the conspiracy theorist argues: "I'm not talking about one earth race, Jewish or non-Jewish. I'm talking about a genetic network that operates through all races, this bloodline being a fusion of human and reptilian genes."