What exact quotes has Candace Owens said about Jewish people and antisemitism?
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Executive summary
A variety of news outlets and advocacy groups have recorded Candace Owens using explicit phrases about Jewish people, Israel and antisemitism including defenses of Kanye West’s antisemitic tweets, assertions about Jewish influence, and controversial historical claims; reporting aggregates specific quoted lines such as “If you are an honest person, you did not think this tweet was antisemitic,” “If you even accuse someone who is Jewish of having more allegiance to Israel than they do to America, you are going to be in trouble,” and references to a “sinister” Jewish “gang” in Hollywood [1] [2] [3]. The catalogue below lists the exact phrasings the cited outlets attribute to Owens, notes context and competing interpretations, and is limited to what these sources explicitly quote or attribute to her.
1. Direct defenses of Kanye West’s tweets and minimization of antisemitism
Multiple outlets quote Owens defending Kanye West’s controversial social-media posts by asserting that observers who labeled them antisemitic were mistaken; Newsweek quotes her on the Daily Wire podcast saying, “If you are an honest person, you did not think this tweet was antisemitic,” in reference to West’s tweets [1]. Reporting indicates this line was offered as justification for West’s remarks rather than an apology to Jewish audiences [1].
2. Statements about Jewish loyalty, Israel and legal protections
The Anti-Defamation League and other reporting cite Owens criticizing the Antisemitism Awareness Act and saying, “If you even accuse someone who is Jewish of having more allegiance to Israel than they do to America, you are going to be in trouble,” a formulation she used while arguing about First Amendment concerns and the boundaries of discussing Jewish identity and criticism of Israel [2]. The ADL report also attributes to her a warning that Christians “better be very careful if you're going to talk about how the Jews played any sort of role in [Jesus’] persecution,” language she used while discussing Christian doctrine and Jewish history [2].
3. Claims about Jewish influence, Hollywood and a ‘sinister’ ring
Rolling Stone and The Guardian quote Owens using phrases that suggest a conspiratorial view of Jewish influence in media and entertainment, with reporting saying she alluded to a “sinister” Jewish “gang” in Hollywood and mused about “political Jews” and “a very small ring of specific people who are using the fact that they are Jewish to shield themselves from any criticism,” comments that drew rebukes from colleagues and Jewish organizations [3] [4]. These are reported as direct attributions of language she used on social media and in interviews [3] [4].
4. Historical and conspiratorial assertions attributed to Owens
ADL and multiple outlets summarize and quote Owens making incendiary historical claims in interviews, including equating Jews with Marxists who wanted to “rewrite” history, alleging they assassinated the czar “under the guise of pogroms,” and characterizing Stalin and Lenin as part of a “Jewish cabal,” phrasing that reporters transcribe from her interview remarks [2]. Other pieces report her calling the Muslim Quarter in Jerusalem a “ghetto” and writing, “No government anywhere has a right to commit a genocide, ever. There is no justification for a genocide,” while also saying, “If you think it’s antisemitism to notice that innocent Christians were killed in an IDF bombing, then you need to log off,” lines quoted by AEI and others [5].
5. Engagement with blood‑libel imagery and social‑media interactions
Reporting documents that Owens liked or amplified a user post asking Rabbi Shmuley Boteach if he was “drunk on Christian blood again,” an invocation of medieval blood‑libel imagery that outlets treated as part of the evidence of her troubling rhetoric [4] [3]. StopAntisemitism and other groups compiled similar attributions when naming her “Antisemite of the Year,” citing public posts and likes that they say endorse classic antisemitic tropes such as claims that “Jewish people control the media” and conspiratorial allegations about Jewish orchestration of world events [6] [3].
6. Caveats, sources and limits of this catalogue
This compilation relies on the exact quotes and paraphrases published by the ADL, AEI, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, Newsweek and allied outlets; each factual line above is attributed to those reports [2] [5] [3] [4] [1] [6]. Some stories paraphrase longer interviews rather than supply verbatim transcripts; where reporting presented direct quotation marks, those phrasings are cited here, and where outlets summarized themes (for example, her alleged statements about Jews “controlling” media or historical conspiracies) the summary language is flagged to the outlet [3] [7]. Primary video or transcript links are not included in the provided material, so this account is limited to the textual attributions and quotes published by the cited sources.