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The Propagandist and the Prop: Owens and Finkelstein’s Moral Collusion
Candace Owens speaks at CPAC on March 2, 2023. Photo: Lev Radin via Reuters Connect
There are moments in public life when hypocrisy reaches perfect symmetry — when two people so warped by self-righteous delusion collide in mutual validation. The recent conversation between Candace Owens and Norman Finkelstein was one of those moments.
Owens — a professional provocateur who built her career on conspiracies — interviewed Finkelstein, the self-anointed warrior against Israel who insists he’s “not anti-Zionist, just anti-Israel.” She promoted their exchange on X with the line: “Zionism is an illness that perverts.”
However, the true illness that perverts is anti-Zionism itself: a moral virus that twists history, corrodes empathy, and reanimates ancient hatreds under the guise of virtue.
The Cynical Convergence
Norman Finkelstein, by his own account, is the child of Holocaust survivors. His mother endured the Warsaw Ghetto and Majdanek; his father survived Auschwitz. He has invoked that legacy for decades — wielding it as moral license to attack Israel and claim immunity from criticism. He says his parents’ suffering made him “hate injustice,” that he “abhors antisemitism,” and that his opposition is merely to Israel’s “occupation of land seized in 1967.”
That might sound principled — until you see him sitting across from Candace Owens, a figure who traffics in the very antisemitic conspiracies his parents barely survived.
Owens is not merely “controversial.” She has repeatedly flirted with Holocaust denial and revisionism. She once argued that Hitler’s only mistake was wanting to “globalize.” She’s defended Kanye West’s antisemitic tirades as “honest questioning.” She’s suggested that medieval blood libels — the slander that Jews murdered Christian children for their blood — “might not be myths.” She’s even referred to Gaza as a “real Holocaust,” trivializing the murder of over six million Jews, including nearly all of Finkelstein’s extended family.
Owens has also promoted the classic conspiracy that “Zionists control media and finance” — the same poison that fueled centuries of pogroms. And now, she calls Zionism “an illness.” If words mean anything, this is the language of dehumanization — the rhetoric that has always paved the road to persecution and genocide in Jewish history.
The Useful Survivor
Finkelstein, of all people, should know that history. Yet he willingly lent his name, his intellect, and his parents’ memory to a propagandist who is leading the way in making antisemitism fashionable again.
The man who has spent his career accusing others of exploiting the Holocaust handed moral credibility to a woman who treats Jewish suffering as a punchline and a political prop.
It’s a tragic irony. Finkelstein’s life’s work — railing against what he calls “the Holocaust industry” — has itself become an act of exploitation. His parents’ story has become his brand. And by sitting with Owens, he didn’t just betray that story — he turned it into content. He handed the memory of the Warsaw Ghetto and Auschwitz to someone who denies what they meant.
Owens’s worldview is a conspiracy buffet: the “globalists,” the “elites,” the “Zionists,” the “Deep State.” Interchangeable villains for interchangeable hatreds. And now, the man who once prided himself on purportedly exposing propaganda has become its instrument.
The Familiar Script
Owens rails against Zionism, but the sickness isn’t in Zionism — it’s in the movement that demonizes it. Zionism is the national liberation movement of an indigenous people returning home. Anti-Zionism is the ideology that seeks to strip that people of sovereignty, identity, and safety — and to call that “justice.”
It’s the oldest trick in the antisemite’s book — a sleight of hand that turns survival into sin. For centuries, Jews were accused of being both cosmopolitan schemers and insular separatists, both capitalist exploiters and communist subversives. Now, they are labeled “invaders” and “colonizers” — in their own ancestral homeland.
The target shifts; the obsession endures. The aim is always the same: to make Jews and Jewish existence itself appear illegitimate.
When Owens speaks of “Zionism as an illness,” she echoes the language of Soviet propagandists and 20th-century autocrats who used “Zionist” as code for “Jew.” And when Finkelstein nods along, he ceases to be her foil. He becomes her accomplice.
Anti-Zionism’s Moral Collapse
This encounter underscores what has long been true: that anti-Zionism and antisemitism are not distant cousins — they are twins. Anti-Zionism borrows antisemitism’s architecture — the myth of the uniquely evil, globally manipulative Jew — and transfers it from the individual to the collective, from the Jew to the Jewish State. The object of hate changes; the pathology remains.
Finkelstein insists he abhors antisemitism, yet he refuses to recognize it when it hides behind the language of “anti-imperialism” or “human rights.” He confuses moral inversion for moral insight. His blind spot isn’t ignorance — it’s arrogance. And Owens, ever the opportunist, exploited that arrogance to launder her bigotry through the mouth of a Jew.
The True Illness
Despite what Owens may say about Zionism, her anti-Zionism is the true illness. It distorts truth, history, and conscience. It twists the children of survivors into apologists for those who seek their people’s destruction. It turns moral language into a weapon for erasure.
Candace Owens embodies that illness. Norman Finkelstein enables it. Together, they form the perfect symbiosis of hate and ego — the propagandist and the prop, each reflecting and amplifying the other’s lie.
The question isn’t whether they believe what they say. It’s whether the rest of us, knowing our history, have the courage to call their performance what it is: a collaboration in the oldest hatred — repackaged as moral critique, and streamed for profit.
Micha Danzig is an attorney, former IDF soldier, and former NYPD officer. He writes widely on Israel, antisemitism, and Jewish history and serves on the board of Herut North America.
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Israel, India Sign Deals to Boost Defense, Industrial, Tech Cooperation
Israel’s Defense Ministry Director General Amir Baram and Indian Defense Secretary Shri Rajesh Kumar Singh sign new agreements in Tel Aviv to expand defense, industrial, and technological cooperation between the two countries. Photo: Screenshot
Israel and India on Tuesday signed new agreements to expand defense, industrial, and technological cooperation during high-level talks in Tel Aviv, as both nations aim to deepen ties amid shifting Middle East power dynamics and rising regional tensions.
Israel’s Defense Ministry Director General Amir Baram and Indian Defense Secretary Shri Rajesh Kumar Singh signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) during the annual bilateral Joint Working Group meeting.
“This strategic dialogue with India takes place at a critical juncture for both countries. Our strategic partnership is based on deep mutual trust and shared security interests,” Baram said during a joint press conference.
“We view India as a first-rate strategic partner and are determined to continue deepening cooperation in the fields of defense, technology and industry,” the Israeli official continued.
Strengthening Defense Cooperation: Israel MOD Director General and Indian Defense Secretary Sign Strategic Memorandum of Understanding
@SpokespersonMoD
Read more: https://t.co/ito3P1sCQg pic.twitter.com/FjxBkwFf1C
— Ministry of Defense (@Israel_MOD) November 4, 2025
As part of the visit, the Indian delegation — which included senior officials from the Ministry of Defense and the Armed Forces — met with Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz and participated in a forum with CEOs of Israeli defense companies to advance industrial-defense cooperation between the two countries.
Among other areas of cooperation, the newly signed agreement aims to advance joint efforts in defense manufacturing, research, and technological development.
Israeli-Indian diplomatic relations have been steadily growing since India established full diplomatic ties with Israel in 1992.
Since then, the two nations have signed multiple agreements to deepen cooperation across industries, further strengthening defense and security ties.
In recent years, trade between the two countries has been rapidly expanding, with India now being Israel’s seventh-largest trade partner globally. Israeli exports to India rose from $200 million in 1992 to $2.5 billion in 2024.
Over the past decade, Israel’s exports to India have grown by about 60 percent, and investments in the tech sector are becoming increasingly significant.
Military cooperation has also grown, with Israel selling billions of dollars’ worth of weapons systems to India and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Indian military regularly participating in joint exercises.
India is one of the largest consumers of Israeli military equipment, accounting for almost 40 percent of Israel’s total arms exports.
According to media reports, India is set to acquire rockets for its ground forces and surface-to-air defense missiles developed by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) for approximately $3.75 billion.
IAI is also expected to convert six commercial planes into Indian Air Force refueling aircraft for $900 million.
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From the bimah to ‘Squid Game’: A rabbi finds Torah in unexpected places
Jamie Field was still a rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College in New York City when she watched the first season of “Squid Game: The Challenge” and saw a call to action flash across the screen: “Could this be you? Apply now.”
It was 2023, and Field, who had long gravitated toward other reality television shows like “Survivor” and “The Amazing Race,” said she saw something deeply Jewish in them.
“The really beautiful thing about these shows is that when you’re in such a pressure cooker, for me, it’s not about the challenges, although those are fun to watch, but it’s about watching people be people and make mistakes and grow and foster connections between one another, and I’ve found so much Torah in these moments,” Field said in an interview. “I know it’s very rabbi to say.”
Two years later, Field is bringing that approach to the Netflix show’s second season, which premiered Tuesday. She was chosen to be one of over 456 contestants from around the world competing in a series of physical and mental challenges for a $4.56 million prize.
While Jewish contestants have competed on a number of reality TV shows, ordained rabbis have been rarer. Field said she went into the experience feeling a weighty responsibility around portraying Jewish clergy even as she was shackled to a team of players and competed in a relay race of mini games like stacking a house of cards and swinging a ball on a string into a cup.
“I never expected to be the very best of the challenges,” she said. “I’ve always said, I have a heart of gold, but I’m not very dexterous, and so for me, it was about trying my best and giving it my all, and also trying to be true to myself and bringing my values and wisdom and sense of community and representing the rabbinate as best I could into the show.”
Field grew up in Los Angeles and where her family attended Temple Ahavat Shalom, a Reform congregation in the San Fernando Valley.
After graduating from Boston University in 2017, she worked for the Washington Hebrew Congregation, a Reform synagogue in Washington D.C., before enrolling at HUC in 2019, spending her first year in Jerusalem.
After being ordained in 2024, Field began working as the director of education at Beth El Temple Center, a Reform synagogue in Belmont, Massachusetts.
Just four months later, she received a call back from “Squid Game: The Challenge’ asking her if she was still interested. She was soon on her way to London for an extended break for filming.
A year later, in a post on Instagram announcing her appearance on the show, Field said her experience reminded her of what she has learned from Jewish tradition.
“I often share that the Torah is a sacred story of people being people — of being hurt, of making mistakes, of building connections, of adventure, and of finding the divine in it all,” she said. “I felt this so deeply during my experience on Squid Game.”
Among her co-competitors was a NFL cheerleader, a former bomb technician and an Anglican priest with whom Field said she connected on set.
“I had a really good conversation about religion and what it means to sort of be a faith leader on the show with the priest,” said Field. “I actually found that I had conversations about faith with almost everyone I talked to because, you know, people bring things up when you tell them you’re a rabbi.”
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The post From the bimah to ‘Squid Game’: A rabbi finds Torah in unexpected places appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Trump to Meet With Syrian President on Monday, White House Says
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrives to address the 80th United Nations General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York, US, Sept. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jeenah Moon
US President Donald Trump plans to meet with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa at the White House on Monday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday at a press briefing.
Since seizing power from Bashar al-Assad last December, Sharaa has made a series of foreign trips as his transitional government seeks to re-establish Syria’s ties with world powers that had shunned Damascus during Assad’s rule.
Trump has sought good relations with al-Sharaa. In June he revoked most US sanctions against Syria, and Trump met with the Syrian leader when he visited Saudi Arabia last May.
“When the president was in the Middle East, he made the historic decision to lift sanctions on Syria to give them a real chance at peace and I think the administration, we’ve seen good progress on that front under their new leadership,” she said.