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After making a string of antisemitic statements, Candace Owens has left the far-right media company the Daily Wire. Headlines about the split have framed it as a disagreement between Owens and host Ben Shapiro over the Israel-Hamas conflict. Yahoo News’ headline read, “Candace Owens Exits The Daily Wire After Months of Feuding With Ben Shapiro.” The Hollywood Reporter announced, “Candace Owens Out at ‘The Daily Wire’ After Fighting With Co-Founder Over Israel-Hamas War.”
Yet the growing tension between Owens and Shapiro was more than just a more than just a foreign policy disagreement. Like many on the far right, Owens has ratcheted up her antisemitic rhetoric over the past few months. In a recent episode of her show, she said, “What if what is happening right now in Hollywood is there is just a very small ring of specific people who are using the fact that they are Jewish to shield themselves from any criticism? It’s food for thought, right?” On X, she liked a post that referenced the centuries-old blood-libel antisemitic conspiracy theory that Jews drink the blood of Christian children. The author of the post that Owens liked had asked a rabbi, “Are you drunk on Christian blood again?”
Owens is hardly a fringe lunatic—she has 4.8 million followers on X alone. Had a celebrity made these remarks just six months ago, there likely would have been a much louder outcry. But as it was, after she made the incendiary comments on her show, there only was an article in the Jerusalem Post and an opinion piece from the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute. Other than that, it seemed hardly anyone noticed.
But why? In part, it’s because of a broader normalization on the far right of vitriol against Jewish people. As I wrote back in January, a main driver of this is the popular live-streamer Stew Peters:
In the past few weeks, though, Peters has dispensed with the euphemisms, instead leveling his accusations against “the Jews.” On a segment on his show last week, for example, he argued in a passionate diatribe that the United States was controlled by Jewish people. “Every institution in this country is led by somebody who claims to be a Jew,” Peters ranted to more than half a million Rumble viewers. “Are they practicing Jews? No, of course they’re not. They hide behind the Jew label so that they can get people like Elon Musk to kick me off of X for saying that they’re a Jew.” (Peters’ account has not been removed from X.)
Since then, Peters’ hate speech has only become more fervent. In addition to antisemitic statements, he has also posted slurs against people from India to his nearly 570,000 followers on X:
If you like brushing your teeth with cow shit and being gang-raped, India is the perfect destination for you. 🇮🇳
If you don’t like either of these things, too bad, bc these people are legally invading us anyway. pic.twitter.com/IrAB1SVYsG
— Stew Peters (@realstewpeters) March 12, 2024
And Peters isn’t the only one spewing hatred against Jews. Media Matters reported that earlier this month, anti-Muslim pundit Frank Gaffney called Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) a “court Jew” and said he “was sent out to Kosher-ize, if you will, the Biden team’s antipathy towards Israel.” Meanwhile, far-right activist Laura Loomer said last month on her Rumble show, “It’s always the Jews, right?… So many rich Jews have a fixation on trying to destroy America.”
Owens, Peters, and their sympathizers are tricky to call out because they frame their hate speech as a reaction to the genuine horror of Israel’s ongoing siege of Palestine. But pro-Palestine activists have gone to great lengths to distinguish their work from far-right antisemitism. In October, when Peters just was beginning to ramp up his antisemitic extremism, I spoke to Sonya Meyerson-Knox, communications director for the Jewish Voice for Peace, a group of Jewish activists who oppose Israel’s occupation of Palestine. She described Peters and his ilk as “white nationalists with a racist agenda trying to curry favor by peddling vile forms of antisemitic trash.” She added, “We know that it’s actually not about any real care or concern for Palestinians or Jews or Israelis.”
