In recent weeks, I have come down hard on Conservative commentator Candace Owens for her comments, not just in defense of Kanye West but also for attacking those who found her comments and defense of West offensive (mostly Jews). I also came down hard on her employer Ben Shapiro for portraying their differences of opinion as a “feature, not a bug,” while promoting her and her new documentary.
In a recent column, Dennis Prager also defended his friend Owens:
Candace Owens has now been charged with antisemitism — for defending and not condemning her friend Kanye West after his antisemitic outbursts. Ideally, she would have. She could have said something like what Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres said about President Ronald Reagan when, during the Cold War, in a show of support for West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Reagan visited Bitburg, a World War II German military cemetery where 49 Nazi Waffen-SS soldiers were buried. Peres said, “When a friend makes a mistake, he remains a friend, but the mistake remains a mistake.”
I wish she had said something to that effect, and I hope she will, especially since Ye keeps upping the antisemitic ante.
But is Candace Owens antisemitic? It is sad that the question even needs to be answered. Here are some relevant facts.
She spent two years on the road with Turning Point USA as a staunch defender of Israel on college campuses. She flew to Israel to attend the opening of the American embassy in Jerusalem. She worked for Prager University, run by three committed Jews (I am one of them). Her longest and closest friend is a Jew. She and her British husband are donors to The Conservative Friends of Israel in the United Kingdom. Her father-in-law is the vice chairman of the Counsel for Christians and Jews. In the last five years, she has spoken at Jewish Community Centers four times. She has worked for the last few years for the Daily Wire, co-founded by Ben Shapiro, a yarmulke-wearing Orthodox Jew.
Will any of this be acknowledged by those who attack Candace? I have long argued for the existence of what I call “moral bank accounts.” Every one of us has a moral bank account: The good we do makes deposits into the account, while the bad we do makes withdrawals. Candace Owens’ moral bank account on matters important to Jews has long been in the black.
I have discussed Candace Owens because America needs this brave woman, and because the greatest threats to American Jews and Israel today come from the Left, threats that receive much less attention. How many of those who have rightly condemned Kanye West have spoken out about the Israel-hatred that prevails on most American campuses and frequently overflows into antisemitism?
Since Dennis’ column, Owens liked and tweeted in support of a vile tweet by antisemite Max Blumenthal:
While I am no fan of the ADL, Owen’s support of Blumenthal’s tweet is problematic alone because of who Blumenthal is. Add to that fact the issues with the tweet itself:
- It plays into the trop of rich, affluent Jews with much power
- It suggests American Jews are enjoying unprecedented safety, at a time they are the victims of a rising amount of physical attacks
- It misrepresents what Zionism is about
- It suggests “Zionists” and the state of Israel exaggerate antisemitism fears for their own agenda
This time around, Shapiro called her out more sternly:
which Owens clearly did not like.
Owens has since admitted West’s words were antisemitic after all, and that she stands by her Jewish friends:
In a Daily Wire opinion piece sharing her monologue from her show, “Breaking My Silence On Ye And The Jewish Community,” Owens explained, “I’m standing by Ye as he weathers this tremendous storm. But I also recognize that I need to make it abundantly clear that I’m standing by Dennis Prager as well, and all of my other Jewish friends and supporters who are speaking out for me, and who have endured what may have felt like a very heavy silence from me.” (Owens worked for two years at Prager University, the conservative radio talk show host’s advocacy group.)
“I think it’s important for me to state the obvious: I, of course, am not anti-Semitic whatsoever,” Owens added. “I’ve never had an anti-Semitic bone in my body. Actually, before I married my husband, I almost married a Jewish man.”
I will give her the benefit of the doubt that she really felt she wanted to clear the air, and not that Ben Shapiro “strongly suggested it.” Be that as it may, she makes it sound like West genuinely apologized (he did not), and ignores his recent antisemitic comments. Like this one , that has since been deleted:
And while Owens is clear to point out that “what started all of this was a series of text messages from one Jewish person. And it’s important to say one Jewish person — not the Jewish community, not the entire Jewish world”, she has just tweeted this:
I do not know Candace Owens and I do not know whether or not she is actually antisemitic. What I do know is she is extremely loyal to her friends, whether it be the antisemitic Kanye West or the Jewish Dennis Prager. This loyalty seems to influence what she says and what she writes.
I also know that Candace Owens is very intelligent. I find it hard to believe she would retweet Max Blumenthal without knowing more about who he is, and where she agrees with only one part of his tweet.
I find it even harder to believe that she does not understand that she is helping perpetuate the idea of the rich, powerful, greedy Jew destroying the fabric of society for money – even if this is not her intention.
So whether or not Candace Owens is antisemitic is not really the point. The fact she is enabling antisemitism is.
Update: This doesn’t look good either:
