Bret Stephens says, "Antisemitism is not merely a form of hatred. It is a conspiracy theory about how the world works."
He is not the only one to frame antisemitism this way. Deborah Lipstadt has echoed similar ideas, describing antisemitism as a “conspiracy theory that blames Jews for every problem under the sun.” In her book Antisemitism: Here and Now, she emphasizes that this form of hate is unique in its persistence and in its insistence that Jews are not merely wrong, but secretly powerful and malicious. This framing, she argues, makes antisemitism self-reinforcing and impervious to logic. Historian David Nirenberg has likewise suggested that antisemitism functions as a kind of moral or explanatory engine: when things go wrong, the Jew is cast as the hidden cause.
At first glance, this is an appealing explanation. It seems to unite many divergent forms of antisemitism under a single intellectual umbrella: the belief that Jews operate in secret, behind the scenes, manipulating events for their benefit and others’ ruin. And across the ideological spectrum, this indeed shows up again and again.
The Nazi obsession with blaming Jewish financiers controlling the First World War. Islamist narratives about Jews as breakers of covenants and corrupting the Torah. Progressive suspicions that Jews serve as hidden faces of capitalism, whiteness, or settler colonialism. Far-right theories about Jews bringing in immigrants, controlling Hollywood and the government.
These conspiracies differ in content, but share one thing: they give the hater a moral story that makes their hatred feel justified. Even Nazi ideology, which felt that subhuman Jews would eventually become extinct under social Darwinism, embraced Elders of Zion conspiracies to explain why Jews survived.
But are antisemitic philosophies conspiracy theories themselves, or are conspiracy theories an aspect of antisemitic philosophies?
I started this series with an article called A Unified Field Theory of Antisemitism. As I explored and analyzed all the major types of antisemitism, I saw that my initial theory was not quite right.
I identified several aspects that antisemitic groups have in common. They are all eliminationist, wanting to see Jews or Judaism or the Jewish state disappear. They all have a hate for Jews that is far deeper than the feelings normal people have towards their perceived enemies. They all have extremist and absolutist beliefs.
What dimension does the fact that they all resort to conspiracy theories add to the conversation?
It helps prove that all of these philosophies hate Jews because they regard Jews as an existential threat - to themselves.
Across cultures and ideologies, Jews have often represented something both enduring and distinct. That distinctiveness, especially when Jews are successful, moral, or intellectually visible, creates a psychological problem for absolutist belief systems.
Christianity promised to replace the Jews. But Jews kept existing.
Islam declared itself the final truth. But Jews wouldn’t submit.
Marxists envisioned class liberation. But Jews didn’t fit in their classes.
Progressives advocate for the oppressed. But the most oppressed people on Earth built a nation out of the ashes.
People avoid normal threats. But they only want to eradicate threats that they believe makes their entire lives meaningless.
For these and other antisemites, conspiracy theory is not the reason for the hate, but a consequence of it. It is a coping mechanism - a psychological defense to explain why the Jew has not disappeared, and why their very presence feels like a threat to their own self-definition. It is a result of cognitive dissonance.
This exposes something deeper: antisemitic ideologies are not defined by conspiracy theory, but by an inability to tolerate the Jew. The conspiracy theory is merely the justification they create to preserve their worldview. the philosophies that end up antisemitic are the ones that cannot tolerate the continued existence of the Jew. And more importantly, they are the ones that require conspiracy thinking to resolve their own internal contradictions and reduce their cognitive dissonance. If Jews should not exist in their philosophies, yet they not only exist but thrive, the Jews must have cheated somehow - which is the justification for their destruction.
Other moral and philosophical systems do not need to explain away Jewish persistence. They do not feel threatened by Jewish moral or national distinctiveness. They can tolerate, or even embrace, Jewish survival, visibility, and sovereignty. For example:
Utilitarianism seeks outcomes, not targets. It has no built-in reason to resent Jews.
Kantian ethics values moral autonomy and duty. Jews fit that model.
Classical liberalism cherishes pluralism. Jews thrive within it.
Moral relativism, despite its flaws, does not centrally oppose any one tradition.
Buddhism, Stoicism, and Confucianism show no historical pattern of anti-Jewish sentiment.
None of these frameworks are perfect. Elsewhere we have criticized some of them. But none feel compelled to invent a moral explanation for why the Jew exists. That burden belongs to broken systems.
So while Stephens and Lipstadt are right to identify conspiracy theory as a hallmark of antisemitism, their analysis stops short of the root cause. The conspiracy theory is not the root. It is a tool used by philosophies who consider the Jew’s existence a refutation of their beliefs.
The Jew is not just a scapegoat in these systems, but intolerance of the Jew is a metric that shows the philosophy is not only dangerous, but failing.
If we are going to fight antisemitism, it is critical that we know exactly what it is and why the practitioners hate Jews so much. Exposing the conspiracy theory alone is not enough, since those theories of evil Jewish power is just a symptom of the problem.
This also explains the so-called horseshoe theory, why radically opposed ideologies - like Marxism and Islamism, or progressive anti-racism and white nationalism - all converge on antisemitic narratives. They share a psychological need to explain why the Jew, who should not exist in their systems, continues to succeed. The conspiracy a necessity to allay their internal contradiction. We must understand the moral discomfort that precedes the hate - the loathing oft Jews is a kind of moral check, a mirror that reflects back the flaws of the system.
That’s why Jewish ethics isn’t just a counter-narrative. It’s a diagnostic tool. It reveals exactly how and where a system can’t handle contradiction, humility, or difference - and how quickly that failure metastasizes into hatred.
This isn’t just a rhetorical point. It’s the key to understanding why antisemitism outlives every ideology it infects.
The conspiracy theories will never stop as long as people teach and learn philosophies that cannot explain why the Jews are still alive.
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