(A response to Bret Stephens’ sermon on antisemitism, Nov. 11, 2025)
Ah, Bret Stephens has spoken again — that weary high priest of moral panic and selective outrage.
Once more, he descends from the pages of The New York Times, clutching the sacred scroll of victimhood in one hand and a mirror he refuses to look into with the other.
This time, his sermon bears a familiar title — “Meet the New Antisemites, Same as the Old Antisemites.”
Catchy. Biblical, even.
Only problem? The real “old antisemites” are now wearing army uniforms with Hebrew lettering and dropping U.S.-financed bombs on Gaza — and Bret calls that “self-defense.”
The Gospel According to Bret
Bret laments Tucker Carlson’s interview with Nick Fuentes — the “Hitler fanboy,” as he calls him — as proof that antisemitism is seeping back through the cracks of American conservatism.
And he’s right — it is.
Only, one wonders why Bret’s moral radar detects every droplet of hate in American discourse but goes blind to the tsunami of racism, dehumanization, and state-sponsored extermination carried out by a government that claims to represent the Jewish people.
Apparently, antisemitism is a problem when someone tweets it — not when someone commits it from an F-16.
Selective Outrage Syndrome
Stephens praises Ted Cruz, The Wall Street Journal, and the Heritage staffers who “rose to the occasion.”
Beautiful — conservatives scolding other conservatives for being too antisemitic while voting for weapons shipments to an army that’s been burying Palestinians under rubble for a year straight.
This is the Broadway version of morality: loud, dramatic, perfectly timed — and entirely performative.
Stephens writes that antisemitism “isn’t merely a prejudice, it’s a conspiracy theory.”
True.
But so is Zionism — the belief that the world’s Jews, scattered and diverse, are eternally bound to a single nationalist project that can never be questioned without invoking the specter of Hitler.
If antisemitism is a sewer pipe, then Zionism, as Stephens sells it, is the plumbing system that recycles its stench into political virtue.
Meet the Mirror, Bret
In Stephens’ universe, every critique of Israel is “antisemitic,” but every bomb on Rafah is “self-defense.”
Every campus protester is a “Jew-hater,” but every Israeli pilot is a “defender of civilization.”
This is not moral clarity — it’s moral theater.
He quotes Leo Strauss calling antisemitism “the socialism of fools.”
But Bret, with that smug certainty of the New York Times moralist, practices “the journalism of cowards.”
He dares to condemn Tucker Carlson’s platforming of hate while his own pen launders war crimes into “existential necessity.”
The only difference between Carlson’s cynicism and Stephens’ sanctimony is the brand of cologne each uses to mask the rot.
A Familiar Pattern
Bret says antisemitism keeps returning — and he’s right again.
It does return, but often in Zionist drag:
- The “chosen people” rhetoric that divides humanity into God’s favorites and everyone else.
- The moral immunity that turns ethnic cleansing into “security.”
- The silencing of dissent with the nuclear code word: antisemitism.
Stephens loves to talk about “the good Jews” — the ones who wave Israeli flags and never question the body count — and the “bad Jews” — the ones who stand with Palestinians and remind the world that justice cannot be partitioned by faith.
To Bret, those Jews are the “new antisemites.”
Yes, in 2025, the ultimate sin is not killing children — it’s criticizing the people who do.
The Intellectual Gymnastics of Moral Superiority
Stephens calls out the “antisemitic-adjacent” logic of MAGA populism — its fear of globalism, of elites, of international conspiracies.
Fair enough.
But what does he think Zionism is if not an “identity politics” project that turns religion into nationalism and victimhood into a foreign policy strategy?
He condemns conspiracy theories about “globalist Jews,” but writes weekly to defend the actual global network of pro-Israel lobbies pressuring governments, intimidating journalists, and rewriting laws to criminalize dissent.
The irony could fund a Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof.
And Now for the Grand Finale
Stephens ends his sermon warning that “Jews don’t have the luxury of being indifferent.”
Indeed — but Palestinians don’t have the luxury of being alive.
While Bret moralizes about antisemitic tweets, Gaza’s morgues are overflowing.
While he warns about Nick Fuentes’ words, children are being amputated without anesthesia.
While he frets about “waves” of antisemitism, Israel has turned the Mediterranean itself into a graveyard.
And yet, Bret — like so many of his peers — will never connect the dots.
Because the one form of antisemitism he cannot see is the one committed in its name.
Meet the New Antisemites, Bret.
They wear blue-and-white flags on their sleeves and carry press badges instead of swastikas.
They cheer for bombs, cry for hostages, and quote Leo Strauss while Gaza burns.
They publish in The New York Times and call it moral courage.
So yes, Bret — the antisemites have changed.
But not as much as the journalists who pretend to fight them.
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