by MarkTapson
This is bigger than both of them.
If you follow conservative commentators or pay attention to what’s trending on Twitter – sorry, X – then you can’t have failed to notice the controversy stemming from what initially began as infighting over at The Daily Wire – specifically, between founder Ben Shapiro and one of its big stars, Candace Owens. But their altercation very quickly morphed into something potentially much larger and more concerning than just a gossipy feud between two media personalities.
Joel Pollak at Breitbart News wrote a very balanced, neutral explanation of how the controversy began and what it was initially all about, for those who missed out on the back story. Most people became aware of the dispute after seeing a short, viral video clip of Shapiro responding to a question at a speaking engagement about his thoughts on Owens’ take on the Israel-Hamas conflict. Pollak recaps from there:
Shapiro called Owens’s commentary on the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas “disgraceful,” without specifying. Owens has generally been skeptical of the war and of U.S. involvement, and has been accused of equivocating between Israel and Hamas.
In one post on X / Twitter, for example, Owens described a massive pro-Palestinian protest in London, which included extreme anti-Israel chants and antisemitic rhetoric, as if it were motivated by rejection of a media narrative, not hatred of Israel and Jews.
Owens responded to Shapiro passive-aggressively (not addressing his criticism directly or him by name) on social media with quotes from the New Testament’s gospel of Matthew:
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other.
You cannot serve both God and money.
Shapiro shot back online: “Candace, if you feel that taking money from The Daily Wire somehow comes between you and God, by all means quit.” To which Owens replied, bizarrely, “You are utterly out of line for suggesting that I cannot quote biblical scripture. The Bible is not about you.”
This was an utterly deceitful spin, considering that Shapiro said nothing about prohibiting her from quoting scripture. And although the Bible may not be all about Shapiro, Owens’ original quote certainly was, and as her boss he was justified in calling her out about it.
Some respondents on X took Owens to task for willfully misinterpreting Shapiro’s tweet, but as soon as she made the dispute about him suppressing her right to quote the New Testament, Jew-haters on Twitter rallied to her defense to pump up her false narrative that this was all about a Jew whose loyalty to Israel supposedly supersedes his loyalty to America versus an America-First Christian who wants the U.S. to stay out of foreign wars. If that sounds like I am blowing this out of proportion, I urge you to simply scan the comments on social media posts about the pair. Candace has many loyal followers, but a disturbing number of them seem to be Jew-haters, some of whom openly embrace the label “groypers” – the racist, America First followers of the repugnant young online demagogue Nick Fuentes. And they are helping to spin the controversy in a way that pits Christians against Jews, and America First supporters against supporters of Israel.
One X user, for example, wrote, “> Christian quotes bible > Jew takes it personally. Many such cases.” Another wrote, “Well to be fair, to them quoting scripture is like garlic to a vampire.” Yet another viciously urged Candace, “COOK HIM. COOK HIM.” Anti-Israel propagandist Jackson Hinkle, who has over 2 million X followers, tweeted repeatedly in support of Owens, such as this one: “I am not surprised that the GENOCIDAL ZIONIST Ben Shapiro is OFFENDED by The Bible!” And this one: “Ben Shapiro claims ‘facts don’t care about your feelings.’ The Bible doesn’t care about YOUR feelings either, Ben!” A groyper with the X handle “classicsgroyp” posted a short video of Nick Fuentes taking Owens’ side against Shapiro, whom the slimy hate-monger accused of not caring about white people or America, only Israel.
This is a common antisemitic trope, by the way: the smear that American Jews have double loyalties or even a greater loyalty to Israel, and therefore are potentially or literally traitorous. That is Nick Fuentes’ rabble-rousing claim: They can’t be trusted. Just under the surface, they’re anti-American as well as anti-Christian. Even conservative commentator Jason Whitlock defended Owens by attacking “Jewish elites” and accusing Shapiro of dual loyalty.
As Joel Pollak wrote,
There is nothing disloyal about Americans wanting to support and defend Israel against Hamas terror, both out of love of Israel, and out of concern that a victory for a radical Islamic terror group like Hamas would make America and the world less safe.
…
There are also “America First” conservatives who have argued — like this author — that supporting Israel is in America’s interest, both because we must defend allies (within limits), and because defending Israel also helps us defend religious liberty in America.
Full disclosure: I know Ben Shapiro and we are, I presume, on friendly terms, though we haven’t communicated with each other for several years. We used to work together at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. I sometimes agree with Ben, sometimes not. I have never met Candace Owens but for various reasons I am not now nor have I ever been a fan. On a personal level I am completely indifferent about their feud; my concern is that the truth about why Ben slammed her – her deplorable ignorance about Israel, such as her belief that Jerusalem’s Muslim quarter is the only area Muslims are allowed to live in the city – is now being overwhelmed by a narrative she created in order to present herself as the innocent victim of Ben’s purported enmity toward Christians.
This is part of a pattern, by the way, of how Owens deflects criticism of her sometimes questionable positions: not by defending her stance in skillful debate (much less by confessing her ignorance), but by steering things in a different direction, turning the spotlight on her critics, and steamrolling over them with verbal diarrhea.
Case in point: in an appearance on a recent episode of comedian Bill Maher’s podcast Club Random, Owens acknowledged (not for the first time) her skepticism of America’s 1969 moon landing. Needless to say, Maher was taken aback, especially when she added, “I just want to know why we didn’t go back.”
“We DID go back,” he countered, “like, ten times.” To be precise, after the historic 1969 landing America went back to the moon a half dozen times, with five of those including landings. But Maher correctly added that a dozen different astronauts have walked on the moon. To cover her ignorance, Owens immediately began demanding the names of all those astronauts. “Who the f**k remembers what the astronauts’ names were?” Maher began, and she pressed, “That’s a pretty big deal, to walk on the moon… Who else walked on it?” Maher got uncharacteristically flustered as Owens pounced to make him look like the ignorant one: “What were their names?” She went on to barrage him with her rapid-fire delivery about how and why he even dug up this “niche” topic, without ever admitting his valid point that her moon landing denial calls into question her judgment on other, more important topics.
Similarly, rather than address Shapiro’s criticism of her appalling ignorance about Israel and her moral equivalence in accusing the Jewish state of apartheid and genocide, she accused him of suppressing her faith – as if Shapiro would ever do such a thing. As I understand it, the great majority of the commentators, staff, and even funders of The Daily Wire are Christian. Shapiro is devoutly Jewish and hence does not believe in Christ’s divinity; but to suggest that he harbors animosity toward his Christian employees and objects to them publicly expressing their faith is patently false.
Many conservatives now feel compelled to choose sides between Shapiro and Owens and thus between Jews and Christians, as well as between Israel and America. This begs clarification of what it means to put America first. Too many America Firsters seem to believe that the term means America Alone; it should not. I, for example, wholeheartedly support America first, but I do not support absolute isolationism, which in any case is impractical if not impossible in today’s world. America First should include supporting – to a reasonable extent – our allies, especially Israel. That is a right and just thing to do.
America First should mean shoring up our own border, economy, and military preparedness before trying to export democracy around the world to countries that don’t want it, and before hemorrhaging money to corrupt regimes abroad. It should mean avoiding foreign wars (when possible) and not playing the world’s policeman but also supporting our close friends in Israel against the genocidal evil of Islamic imperialism.
To sum up, the Owens-Shapiro showdown is bigger than even the oversized personas of Candace and Ben; their clash has become the flashpoint of two broader issues.
One issue is whether America First means shooting ourselves in the foot with a rigid isolationism on the one hand, or, on the other hand, embracing a commonsense self-interest that includes supporting our closest allies in a world made exponentially more dangerous by a subversive, globalist, Democrat administration.
And two, the Owens-Shapiro feud threatens to empower a shameful strain of antisemitism among a minority of conservatives who call themselves Christian. As believers in the Judeo-Christian foundation of our civilization’s moral code and spiritual strength, American Christians and Jews should and must be natural allies.
These are rifts that the “groypers” of the right and the Hamas-lovers of the left will happily exploit to divide-and-conquer their political opponents. Conservatives must not allow those hateful agendas to prevail.
Follow Mark Tapson at Culture Warrior.
MarkTapson is the Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, focusing
on popular culture. He is also the host of an original podcast on
Frontpage, “The Right Take With Mark Tapson”. Follow him on Substack.
Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/why-the-candace-owens-ben-shapiro-feud-matters/
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