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<\/a><\/p>\nNew York Times columnist Bret Stephens delivered the “State of World Jewry” talk at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan, Feb. 1, 2026. (Peter Jamus\/Michael Priest Photography)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Stephens, who has spent years pushing back on what he sees as double standards applied to Israel, wrote that he decided to speak out against what he called \u201cJewish terrorists\u201d despite his reluctance to feed the volume of global condemnation facing Israel. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not only because the terrorism is a menace to Palestinian lives and property, or an affront to Jewish ethics, or a stain on Israel\u2019s reputation \u2014 though it\u2019s all those things,\u201d he wrote. \u201cIt\u2019s also a direct threat to Israel\u2019s security and statehood, and thus to Zionism itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stephens\u2019s column drew heavily on a public letter sent Sunday to President Trump by Matan Vilnai, a retired IDF deputy chief of staff, on behalf of Commanders for Israel\u2019s Security, an organization representing hundreds of retired senior Israeli officers. The letter cautioned that Israeli security services have been effective against Palestinian terror groups but hamstrung when it comes to curbing Jewish extremists. The letter warned about the consequences of Israeli inaction in curbing attacks on Palestinians.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnless arrested swiftly and decisively, escalating violence in the West Bank is poised to ignite the region and carries severe ramifications for both Israeli security and U.S. regional interests,\u201d wrote Vilnai.<\/p>\n
Stephens pointed to last week\u2019s rampage by extremist settlers through several Palestinian villages \u2014 attacks that reportedly included arson at a home and two mosques and an assault on a stonecutting factory \u2014 as evidence the problem has become routine rather than exceptional. He cited Israeli military figures showing nationalistic and settler-related crimes climbed to 867 incidents in 2025, up from 682 the year before.<\/p>\n
Stephens also cited Eran Shamir-Borer of the Israel Democracy Institute, a former IDF legal official, who told him the government has specifically declined to place suspected Jewish settlers under administrative detention. The practice, imprisoning individuals without formal charges, is regularly deployed against suspected Palestinian terrorists. <\/p>\n
The columnist dismissed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s public framing of the violence as the work of roughly 150 \u201cjuvenile delinquents,\u201d as he did in an interview with NBC earlier this month. Stephens argued that a government capable of eliminating a Hamas commander deep inside Iran cannot plausibly claim it\u2019s unable to rein in a few hundred vigilantes. <\/p>\n
Stephens is known, and widely admired within the pro-Israel community, for his robust defense of Israel, from refuting the charge of \u201cgenocide\u201d directed at Israel to condemning what he has called the \u201chyperbolic and often conspiratorial hatred of the country.\u201d Editor of the conservative Jewish thought journal Sapir, Stephens was also chosen to give the annual \u201cState of World Jewry\u201d address at the 92nd Street Y earlier this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it is really important that people like Bret Stephens are speaking up about settler violence, and I think that it also shows how terrible that it\u2019s become,\u201d said Rabbi Jill Jacobs, CEO of T\u2019ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, in an interview with JTA. \u201cEven people who are pretty, let\u2019s say, hesitant or who almost never criticize Israeli policy are speaking up.\u201d<\/p>\n
But she also suggested that the issue goes beyond a failure to enforce the law or hold settlers accountable, and instead reflects the priorities of Netanyahu\u2019s right-wing government. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is actually government policy because this is violence that is designed to take more and more of the West Bank,\u201d said Jacobs. \u201cThere\u2019s already been not just violence, but expulsions, shoving Palestinians to smaller and smaller areas and, ultimately, annexing the West Bank or at least as much of it as possible.\u201d <\/p>\n
Liberal Jewish groups like T\u2019ruah, including Torat Zedek and Bnei Avraham in Israel and the U.S-based groups Smol Emuni, J Street and New Israel Fund, regularly condemn the settler violence and call on Israeli security forces to hold the perpetrators accountable. They also take part in \u201cprotective presence\u201d visits to the West Bank in solidarity with Palestinians threatened by Jewish settlers.<\/p>\n
The largest Jewish organizations have been less vocal on the topic, although the American Jewish Committee and the Union for Reform Judaism have issued statements condemning settler violence. <\/p>\n
Right-leaning groups have either downplayed the extent of the violence or say Jews living in the West Bank have been provoked by neighboring Palestinians. On the same day that Stephens\u2019s column appeared, the media watchdog group HonestReporting ran an article saying that the major news outlets disproportionately focus on settler violence, and run many fewer articles about Palestinian attacks on Jewish civilians. It also cited official Israeli data suggesting that violence by Jewish civilians in the West Bank had declined significantly since March.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, Stephens appeared to be echoing a growing sentiment even on the right that the settler violence is both wrong and a black eye for Israel at a time when its reputation is suffering around the world. <\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think there are many supporters of Israel in the U.S. who are happy with how Israel has handled, or really mishandled, settler violence,\u201d said David E. Bernstein, a professor at George Mason\u2019s Antonin Scalia Law School and a frequent commentator on Jewish affairs, in an email exchange with JTA. \u201cTo me, it\u2019s anti-Zionist to allow settlers to flout the law and public policy, whether by violence or by setting up illegal outposts, because Zionism means accepting the legitimacy of the Israeli state, and radical settlers who don\u2019t are no different than extremist Haredim [Orthodox] in not doing so.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last week, Israel\u2019s Channel 13 reported that the government had approved a plan in March to tackle violence by extremist settlers but kept the plan secret due \u201cto political considerations.\u201d The report didn\u2019t say whether the plan has been implemented.<\/p>\n