Candace Owens Mistakenly Claims that Muslims in Jerusalem Are Allowed Only in the Muslim Quarter
The Daily Wire’s Candace Owens mistakenly claimed that Muslims in the Israeli capital of Jerusalem are allowed to live only in the Muslim Quarter during a debate with Jewish comedian Ami Kozak on her podcast Monday.
The impetus behind the episode, entitled “Am I Anti-Semitic?”, was a tweet sent by Owens last Friday stating that “No government anywhere has a right to commit genocide, ever.” Owens’s assertion was taken as a smear of Israel given her criticism of the world’s only Jewish state in the aftermath of the October 7 massacre of Israeli civilians by Hamas.
No government anywhere has a right to commit a genocide, ever.
There is no justification for a genocide.
I can’t believe this even needs to be said or is even considered the least bit controversial to state.
— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) November 3, 2023
Owens continued to critique the Israeli response to Hamas’s attack and Israeli society as a whole during her conversation with Kozak, perhaps because of her mistaking ethnic neighborhoods in Jerusalem for government-enforced ghettos.
“Do you, have you been to Israel? I’m assuming you have.” Owens asked Kozak at one point.
“Many times, yeah,” answered Kozak.
“Many times. Have you been to Jerusalem?” she inquired.
“Yes,” he affirmed.
“Okay, so one of the things that I’m trying to understand is — cause I’ve been as well — and when people call it this bastion of freedom, or it’s just like America, that’s not the sense that I had when I was there,” explained Owens. “I grew up in my grandparents’ house, my grandfather grew up in a segregated South, and so when I’m walking through Jerusalem, and you see, and they say ‘these are the Muslim quarters, this is where the Muslims are allowed to live,’ that doesn’t feel like a bastion of freedom to me.”
A somewhat perplexed Kozak cut her off there.
“I don’t think it’s where they’re allowed to live in Jerusalem, I think it’s that there’s an Armenian Quarter, it’s not saying the Armenians can only live here,” he explained. “It’s that there are communities just like there’s a Jewish community in Jersey here and there’s a Muslim community in here. I don’t think — to my understanding it’s not restrictions within Israel proper –”
“I think it is where they, I think it is where they have, I mean, at least that’s what the rabbi who was taking me around [said],” interjected Owens. “He said ‘ these are the Muslim quarters so this is where the Muslims –‘”
“Live, but he didn’t say anything about legally saying they cannot live in other places within Israel proper. I mean, there’s Israeli Arab citizens that have full rights,” argued Kozak.
“I’m only talking about Jerusalem so I haven’t been to Tel Aviv or anything like that, I’m just talking about particularly –”
“Jerusalem itself as a city has a division in it where the green line divides and there’s East Jerusalem, that’s maybe what he was talking about, not the Muslim Quarter, but East Jerusalem. There’s disputed territory within the West Bank and East Jerusalem that divides and therefore they’re under Palestinian Authority or even other jurisdiction but that’s a different conversation as far as what those are. But Arabs within Israel, if you go to Israel, people would be surprised to see on every street sign: Hebrew, English, and Arabic. You see a multicultural city.”
The Muslim Quarter is a historical neighborhood within the old city of Jerusalem with a population of somewhere around 22,000. The well over 300,000 Muslims in Jerusalem are not restricted to living inside of it.
