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New York Times’ Bret Stephens Baselessly Blames Israel Critics For Bondi Terrorist Attack

The Dissident | December 14, 2025

The New York Times published an opinion article by the neo-con columnist Bret Stephens, where he baselessly blamed critics of Israel for today’s horrific terrorist attack targeting Jews while they were celebrating Hanukkah at Bondi Beach in Australia, killing 16 people and severely injuring at least 40.

Despite the fact that very little information has even emerged as to what the motivation of the attackers was, Bret Stephens jumped the gun and used the massacre of civilians to smear his political enemies.

Among the people Stephens blamed for the terrorist attack are:

• Green Party legislator Jenny Leong for her criticism of the Israel lobby.
• Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, because he “recognized a Palestinian state and has been outspoken in its condemnation of Israeli actions in Gaza”.
• Palestinian protestors for saying “globalize the intifada”, “resistance is justified”, and “by any means necessary” while protesting the genocide in Gaza.

Stephens admits in the article that there is no evidence that the attack even had anything to do with Gaza or Israel and admitted that it was baseless speculation on his part, writing, “Though we’ll probably learn more in the weeks ahead about the mind-set of Sunday’s killers, it’s reasonable to surmise that what they thought they were doing was ‘globalizing the intifada.’”

Stephens blamed critics of Israel for the attack at Bondi, admitting that the people he slandered have a “political attitude in favor of Palestinian freedom rather than a call to kill their presumptive oppressors,” but added, “But there are always literalists — and it’s the literalists who usually believe their ideas should have real-world consequences. On Sunday, those consequences were written in Jewish blood.”

Stephens’ smear closely mirrors that of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who similarly weaponized the massacre to score political points, blaming Australia’s recognition of a Palestinian state for the attack, saying, “your call for a Palestinian state pours fuel on the antisemitic fire” and calling for more censorship of Israel-critical protests, saying, “Calls such as ‘Globalise the Intifada’, ‘From the River to the Sea Palestine Will be Free’, and ‘Death to the IDF’ are not legitimate, are not part of the freedom of speech, and inevitably lead to what we witnessed today.”

While Bret Stephens’ repetition of Netanyahu’s claim that opposition to Israel’s mass murder campaign in Gaza led to the senseless violence against civilians at Bondi is baseless-Bret Stephens has openly called for and cheered on the same mass violence against civilians he baselessly blames Israel’s critics for.

In March of 2024, Bret Stephens, in a New York Times article, said that “Israel Has No Choice but to Fight On” and called for the Biden administration to “help Israel win the war decisively” in reference to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, which included shooting children in the head and chest, opening fire on starving civilians at aid sites, bombing hospitals and targeting doctors, slaughtering journalists, mass raping and torturing detainees, bombing fertility clinics and setting refugee camps on fire, among other genocidal crimes.

In Ocotber of 2024, Stephens wrote another Op-Ed where he wrote that “We Should Want Israel to Win,” again referring to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, where even the IDF’s own internal data shows that at least 83 percent of people killed were civilians.

Similarly, in a 2023 article, Stephens wrote, “20 Years On, I Don’t Regret Supporting the Iraq War,” adding, “Readers will want to know whether, knowing what I know now, I would still have supported the decision to invade. Not for the reasons given at the time. Not in the way we did it. But on the baseline question of whether Iraq, the Middle East and the world are better off for having gotten rid of a dangerous tyrant, my answer remains yes”, in reference to the criminal U.S. invasion which killed 187,499 – 211,046 civilians.

Most recently, Stephens wrote an article titled, “The Case for Overthrowing Maduro”, cheering on the Trump administration’s slaughter of 80 people on boats in the Caribbean – who they admit they don’t know the identity of- and calling for more strikes on Venezuela in service of a regime change war.

Bret Stephens is using the massacre of civilians at Bondi Beach to smear opponents of the much larger-scale massacres of civilians that he openly supports.

December 15, 2025 - Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | Australia, Israel, New York Times, Zionism