# The Brett Stephens column > **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou. > > Cite as: "The Brett Stephens column," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-brett-stephens-column/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia. *A New York Times column arguing that genocidal statements by Israeli officials after October 7 were intemperate rather than policy, which John Kiriakou answered with a test of his own: if the remarks had not been official policy, the officials who made them would have been fired, and instead two of them became ministers.* - **Author:** Brett Stephens, New York Times - **Published:** Two days before the 25 July 2025 discussion - **The argument:** Genocidal remarks by Israeli officials after October 7 were temper, not policy - **Kiriakou''s test:** If it were not policy, those officials would have been fired - **What happened instead:** They became ministers in the Netanyahu government - **His reaction:** 'I''m still haunted by that Brett Stevens column' **The Brett Stephens column** is a New York Times opinion piece published in late July 2025 that [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) said he was *"still haunted by"* two days after reading it.[1] ## The argument in the column As Kiriakou summarises it, the column conceded that people who call the war in Gaza a genocide point to the genocidal comments made by high-ranking Israeli officials in the days after [October 7](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/october-7-attack), and answered that those officials *"were just being intemperate. They were being spicy. They were just angry about October 7th."*[1] ## The test he applies Kiriakou does not dispute the premise directly. He grants it for the sake of argument — *"let's just say that, you know, we're going to pretend here that Brett Stevens is telling the truth"* — and then applies a single test. If the remarks had genuinely not been the official policy of the Israeli government, *"those people would have been fired."*[2] He supplies the response a government that meant it would have given, in the voice of a hypothetical Israeli president: *"what are you doing? That's not who we are. Please leave. Leave your ID at the door."* Instead, he says, the government *"left them in there."*[2] His own view is that the policy is not in doubt in any case, *"because all the journalists have reported that it is."*[2] ## The two ministers The officials he has in mind are [Bezalel Smotrich](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/bezalel-smotrich) and [Itamar Ben-Gvir](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/itamar-ben-gvir), and the point he adds is a matter of record rather than of interpretation: both *"were successfully prosecuted for felony hate crimes against Palestinians years before ever becoming ministers in the Netanyahu government."*[3] His measure of that record is Nuremberg. *"People went to prison at Nuremberg for less,"* he says, and reaches for Julius Streicher as the example — a man who, however nasty a piece of work, *"just"* published a newspaper.[3][4] ## See also - [Bezalel Smotrich](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/bezalel-smotrich) - [Itamar Ben-Gvir](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/itamar-ben-gvir) - [Famine in Gaza](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/gaza-famine) - [October 7 attack](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/october-7-attack) - [Benjamin Netanyahu](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/benjamin-netanyahu) ## Sources 1. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-07-25), at 18:14. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RypVxybJzHo&t=1094s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-07-25-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ 2. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-07-25), at 18:44. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RypVxybJzHo&t=1124s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-07-25-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ 3. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-07-25), at 19:16. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RypVxybJzHo&t=1156s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-07-25-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ 4. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-07-25), at 19:47. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RypVxybJzHo&t=1187s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-07-25-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ --- From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-brett-stephens-column/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt