IN THE MEDIA
“Blame the Jews” conspiracy theories over Venezuela and Bondi prove nothing changes
January 16, 2026
JNS – 15 January 2026
When something shocking or world-changing occurs, it’s only a matter of time before “The Jews” – sometimes euphemised as “Zionists” – are blamed. It doesn’t matter how outrageous or preposterous the conspiracy theory is – whether it’s baselessly claiming “The Jews” were the real culprits behind the 9/11 terror attacks or the cause of the Covid-19 pandemic – the pattern is always the same.
Anti-Zionist conspiracy theories do not need much evidence or even plausibility. For instance, online influencers have claimed “Israel” pulled the strings behind the scenes to kick off both World War I and World War II. Yet Israel had not yet been re-established before either war occurred.
On January 4, 2026, the Trump Administration launched an extraordinary military operation in Venezuela to capture President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores de Maduro, and bring them to the US to face trial on 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 he lost a 2024 election by a landslide and turned his country into a hotbed of Iran-linked terrorism. So, unsurprisingly, Venezuelans across the world rejoiced at Maduro’s 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 on January 4.
Venezuela’s Acting President Delcy Rodríguez followed a well-worn path for the regime when she claimed in a televised address to the nation there were “Zionist overtones” to Maduro’s capture.
Maduro himself had invoked similar antisemitic conspiracy theories many times in the past. For example, last November, he raged that “far-right Zionists want to hand this country over to the devils.”
The conspiracy theory was not limited to Venezuela. US-based, far-right commentator Candace Owens claimed on social media that either Israel or a “Jewish cabal” was actually responsible for the US operation.
“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,” Owens wrote.
Across social media, other well-known conspiracy theorists added their two cents. One said that the Trump Administration’s military operation was done to appease the US’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, 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. And we cannot ignore this – we know that while these words are dehumanise Jews and invariably lead to antisemitic violence. Since the October 7 terror attacks, we have witnessed countless vicious attacks against Jews all across the world; a group of peaceful Jews being firebombed by two Molotov cocktails, raging mobs of antisemites hunting Jews in Amsterdam, Jewish people being attacked in the street, and multiple synagogues have been destroyed or attacked across the world, sometimes with worshippers inside at the time. Not to mention, the cold-blooded murder of 15 innocent people at a Chanukah celebration at Bondi Beach on December 14, 2025.
In recent years, there have been some truly unhinged claims about what Jewish people have apparently been up to, which is quite remarkable for 16 million people who comprise only 0.02% of the world’s population.
A few years ago, ‘colourful’ US Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene – currently gaining some respectability after her recent public falling out with President Trump – said that “Zionist supremacists” were not only behind Muslims immigrating to Europe in a secret plan to “outbreed white people,” but blamed the 2018 California wildfires on “Jewish space lasers”.
Antisemitic conspiracy theories have been the foundation of Jew-hatred for the past two millennium. During the Middle Ages, European Jews were accused of murdering Christian children for their blood to make Passover matzah.
But in the age of wireless iPhone charging and GPS collars for cats, it is ludicrous that antisemitic conspiracy theories have not only not gone the way of the dodo bird and acid wash denim, but like vinyl records and cassettes, have returned to the mainstream with a vengeance.
The factless blame game never stops; not even after the Bondi Beach massacre. Indeed, even as dozens of men, women and children lay dead and wounded on the sand, many were claiming online that Bondi must have been orchestrated by the Mossad or Zionists.
It may be a new year, but for Jews it’s the same old story.
