Podcaster Candace Owens opened a new line of antisemitic attack on Jews a few weeks ago, when she absurdly accused Jews of running the transatlantic slave trade during the 15^th and 16^th centuries. She said, “Jewish people were in control of the slave trade. They’ve buried a lot of it, but it’s there, and you can find it,” implying a deliberate suppression of this “true history” in order to protect Jewish interests.

Her assertion is absurd, of course, because it’s factually false—based on zero substantive or credible evidence and contradicting all legitimate historical records. In fact, scholarly evidence proves that Jewish participation in the transatlantic slave trade was miniscule.

While it’s easy to defeat Owens’ “argument” with irrefutable facts and logic, it’s first useful to examine her propagandistic methodology, since it exposes flimsy, but deceptive strategies based on a series of argumentative “cheats,” including the a) use of discredited sources, b) representation of insignificant factoids as dispositive, c) hiding major contextual realities and d) ignoring a preponderance of painstaking scholarship.

Owens’ assertions are not meant to build factual cases for her biases, but rather to appeal to those already convinced that Jews are evil, those seeking a rickety illusion of “truth” to buttress their irrational hate. Psychologists call this “confirmation bias”—uncritically believing what you already “know” to be true. Basically, Owens tells her audience what they want to hear.

If you don’t care about hard evidence, these deficits won’t bother you, as they clearly don’t daunt Owens’ fabulism about the malevolence of Jews. But let’s be clear, Candace Owens is like a circus sideshow—shiny and fascinating for the first 15 minutes, then threadbare and tawdry once her cheap rhetorical tricks wear thin. Those who “like” her because she’s “sincere,” attractive, or “convincing” only betray their learning disorder—failure to think critically, failure to question and verify every source of information.

Jews played only a tiny role in slavery, dwarfed by whites, Arabs and black Africans. The transatlantic slave trade was orchestrated by European colonial powers—primarily Portugal, Britain, Spain, France, and the Netherlands—through state-chartered companies like the British Royal African Company and Dutch West India Company.

Financing came from national treasuries, joint-stock markets, and taxes—sectors Jews were often excluded from due to antisemitic laws. Notably, Arab and African Muslims were also heavily involved in the slave trade, transacting 18 million African slaves along trans-Saharan routes. In contrast, mainstream scholars, including Yale’s David Brion Davis, have noted that Jews accounted for less than 2% of Atlantic trade actors. Mainstream scholars adamantly dismiss the utterly nonsensical claims that Jews controlled the slave trade, which is why the American Historical Association (AHA) issued a 1995 resolution condemning such claims.

Owens uses four argument “cheats” to deceive. First, Owens’ arguments on Jewish involvement in the slave trade are based on discredited sources, including “The Talmudic Jew” (Der Talmudjude), which claims Jewish law permits domination, coercion, and exploitation of non-Jews. Consistent with this antisemitic vitriol, Owens said those who describe themselves as Talmudic Jews “think that we’re animals, that they have a right to own us, make us worship them, lie to us, sue us, take everything that we have, and deceive us.”

“The Talmudic Jew” was written in 1871 by antisemitic German theologian August Rohling, who admitted to relying on antisemitic polemics, not verifying citations, and lacking sufficient mastery of Jewish texts. While Rohling was still alive, the Catholic Church distanced itself from him, and Catholic scholars were warned against using his book, which later became a staple of Nazi and other antisemitic literature. Yet, Owens encourages her audience to read it, presenting it as a “suppressed key” to understanding Jewish practices.

Owens’ views also echo the content in another discredited source, “The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, Volume One” (1991), though she doesn’t cite the book by title. This book is an anonymous publication by the Nation of Islam’s Historical Research Department, which alleges that Jews disproportionately owned slaves, financed the trade, and dominated its operations, drawing on selective quotes from Jewish historians and encyclopedias, such as the Encyclopaedia Judaica. The book has been widely debunked by historians as “sophisticated hate literature.”

Second, Owens cherry-picks facts to justify her claim that Jews dominated the slave trade. For instance, she mentions that Jews were involved in specific slave-trading firms and plantations. While these facts may be true technically, they don’t remotely prove Jews controlled the slave trade.

Third, Owens hides major contextual realities. For example, she references the Jewish Encyclopedia to support claims of Jewish slave ownership, but omits context showing Jewish involvement in the slave trade was marginal.

Lastly, Owens fails to cite any credible scholarship on the transatlantic slave trade. Indeed, she utterly ignores perhaps the most definitive book on the subject, “Jews, Slaves, and the Slave Trade” by Eli Faber (1998), which explicitly proves that Jews were a small minority of participants in the transatlantic slave trade.

Confirmation bias makes fools of Owens’ audience. Confirmation bias is flawed reasoning—the habit of interpreting evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs and subconsciously rejecting evidence contradicting those beliefs. Most victims of this trap are unaware of their cognitive bias, and even when aware of it, still slip easily into it. Thus, Owens’ audience of millions of fans are inclined to believe her antisemitic conspiracy theories, despite her failure to present any credible evidence.

Owens’ substitutes passion, supposition and imagination for hard evidence. She represents her “gut” feelings as facts, positions her opinions as morally superior judgments (“If you don’t feel the way I do, you’re insensitive or stupid”), and uses inuendo (“like Jews who worship money”) to imply generalizations. As such, Owens’ passionate claims soon wear thin and sound cheap, like a two-bit sideshow. Thus, as a social media personality, Owens’ is second rate. As a journalist, she’s a disgrace.  The only difference between Owens and her audience is that she’s smart enough to know she’s lying. That’s called evil.

Please make the point when speaking with family, friends, colleagues—or in letters to the editor—that those who admire Owens for being “sincere,” appealing, or “persuasive” are simply revealing their own intellectual shortcomings: An inability to think critically, a failure to challenge assumptions and naïve trust in a notorious charlatan.

If you agree we need to spread this truth, please use your email browser to forward this Hotline issue to fellow lovers of Israel—and encourage them to join us by subscribing to the Hotline at no charge.

Best regards,
Jason Shvili, Contributing Editor
Facts and Logic About the Middle East (FLAME)

P.S.      Surely you’ve recently read of some celebrity, politician, radical student, foreign head of state or media pundit slander Israel with the “Gaza genocide” lie. Many who spread this lie are ignorant, but most are anti-Israel haters. They care nothing for the truth. The tragedy is, when they utter the Gaza genocide falsehood, too few knowledgeable people—and virtually no media—stand up to refute it. Indeed, when you share the simple facts, the genocide lie crumbles. Upon learning that Israel conducts its war against Hamas terrorists with the highest ethical standards—and that nothing Israel does in Gaza fits the definition of genocide—fair-minded people quickly see through the lie. I hope you’ll agree that we supporters of the Israel-U.S. relationship need to speak out. FLAME’s new hasbarah—explanatory message—“Facts Shatter Gaza Genocide Lies”—describes what genocide is and is not and proves factually that Israel’s tactics in the war are ethical and righteous. It also reveals demographic data showing that the Palestinian population in Gaza is actually increasing. Finally, it notes that those who spread the Gaza genocide lie fit the classic definition of antisemites. Please review this convincing, fact-based editorial, which FLAME is about to publish to millions—in leading social media, as well as in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Tampa Bay Times, Denver Post and Los Angeles Times. This piece will also be sent to all members of Congress, the President and Vice President. If you agree that this kind of public relations effort on Israel’s behalf is critical, I urge you to support us with a donation.