Shapiro-Owens Battle Over Israel-Hamas War Intensifies
A battle between conservative icons spilled into the public circle in recent days as Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens sling arrows at each other over the Israel-Hamas war.
The story picks up on Wednesday with Owens posting a Bible quote on X, formerly called Twitter. There is still no evidence that the post was anything more than a Christian conservative commenter posting a quote by Jesus Christ online. But, due to increasingly clear disagreements between the two about the Israel-Hamas War, Shapiro replied harshly to the post.
Shapiro, the co-founder of the influential Daily Wire, replied to the tweet by Owens with a pointed challenge. He told his colleague that she should “by all means quit” if she determined, as Shapiro supposed her quote had implied, that her work for the outlet “comes between” her and God.
Owens replied back, “You have been acting unprofessional and emotionally unhinged for weeks now.”
The popular podcast hosts are increasingly at odds, and a video circulating this week only added fuel to the fire.
The clip, first seen on Tuesday, showed Shapiro attacking recent comments made by Owens regarding the Middle East war, calling them “disgraceful.”
Asked about Owens, he declared “her faux sophistication on these particular issues has been ridiculous.” Shapiro followed this up by terming her statements on Israel “disreputable.”
The dustup between Shapiro and Owens apparently began when she posted on X that she opposed genocide. Since that point, Owens has drawn criticism for not vocalizing full support for Israeli strikes on Gaza.
In an interview on X with Tucker Carlson that was released on Wednesday, Owens said she did not have “much of a background” on which to judge Shapiro’s comments. “I saw the video when everybody else saw it, when I woke up. Nobody warned me about it.”
Owens asserted that there was nothing she said that Shapiro specifically disagreed with. “But I will say that I’m not gonna respond with [the] same ad hominem attacks.”
She added that she would be “embarrassed” if she was caught on tape talking about a colleague in that manner. “So I think the video speaks more to Ben’s character than it speaks to mine.”
