‘Blame the Jews’ conspiracy theories over Venezuela and Bondi prove nothing changes

When something shocking occurs, it’s only a matter of time before fingers are pointed at “The Jews” (euphemism, “The Zionists”). It doesn’t matter how outrageous or preposterous the conspiracy theory, whether baselessly claiming that “The Jews” were the culprits behind the 9/11 terror attacks in the United States or the cause of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. The pattern is always the same.

Anti-Zionist conspiracy theories don’t need much evidence or even plausibility to b e believed. For instance, online influencers claimed that “Israel” pulled the strings behind the scenes to kick off both World War I and World War II. Yet the modern-day State of Israel had not even been re-established before either war occurred.

On Jan. 3, the Trump administration launched a military operation in Venezuela to capture President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores de Maduro, and bring them to the United States. There, they face a trial on multiple charges that include narco-terrorism and drug trafficking based on a 2020 indictment.

Maduro, who oversaw a regime of extreme corruption, poverty and widespread human-rights abuses, was in office despite overwhelming evidence that he lost an election in 2024 by a landslide and turned his country into a hotbed of Iranian-linked terrorism. Unsurprisingly, Venezuelans across the world rejoiced at his capture, including the estimated 7.7 million who were forced to flee their country since 2014.

It took just a few hours for “Zionists” to be blamed for what went down.

Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela’s acting president, followed a well-worn path for the regime when she pronounced in a televised address to the nation that there were “Zionist overtones” to Maduro’s capture.

Maduro himself invoked similar conspiracy theories in the past. Last November, he raged that “far-right Zionists want to hand this country over to the devils.”

That notion was not limited to Venezuela. Candace Owens, a far-right political commentator in the United States, claimed on social media that either Israel or a “Jewish cabal” was actually responsible for the operation by U.S. forces.

“The CIA has staged another hostile takeover of a country at the behest of a [sic] globalist psychopaths. … There has never been a single regime change that Zionists have not applauded because it means they get to steal land, oil and other resources,” she wrote.

Across social media, other well-known conspiracy theorists added their two cents. One said the Trump administration’s military operation was done to appease America’s “Israeli masters.” Another alleged that the Venezuela operation was simply “another war for Israel.”

There are more examples, of course, but the core belief is the same: “The Jews”/“Zionists” want global control, and use money, power, the media, banks and even the weather to achieve it. Anything bad that happens is because of them.

Such unhinged thoughts, once expressed in shadowy corners of society, are increasingly said out loud and under bright lights. These words not only dehumanize Jews and Israelis but can also lead to violence. Since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the world has witnessed countless vicious attacks against Jews. Not two months after a ceasefire was put into place after the two-year war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, 15 people were shot dead at a Chanukah celebration on Australia’s Bondi Beach by Islamist father-and-son gunmen.

A few years ago, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who was given a bit of respectability after her falling out with U.S. President Donald Trump, said “Zionist supremacists” were not only behind Muslim immigration to Europe in a secret plan to “outbreed white people,” but also blamed the 2018 California wildfires on “Jewish space lasers.”

This week, she vacated her seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Antisemitic conspiracy theories have been the foundation of Jew-hatred for the past two millennia. Throughout the Middle Ages, European Jews were accused of murdering Christian children for their blood to make Passover matzah.

Still, in the 21st century and the age of wireless iPhone-charging, it is ludicrous that such conspiracy theories have not gone the way of the dodo bird and acid wash denim. Instead, like vinyl records and cassettes, they have returned to the mainstream with a vengeance.

The fact-less blame game never stops—not even after Bondi Beach. Indeed, even as dozens of men, women and children lay dead and wounded on the sand, many were claiming online that the massacre must have been orchestrated by the Mossad or Zionists.

It may be a new year, but for Jews, it’s the same old story.

©JNS