Right-wing political commentator Candace Owens speaks during an event held by national conservative political movement ‘Turning Point’, in Detroit, Michigan, US, June 14, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Rebecca Cook

Candace Owens — the far-right, antisemitic podcaster followed by 7.5 million users on the X social media platform who admitted last year she has grown “obsessed” with Jews — has now suggested that Israel or world Jewry more broadly was actually behind the Trump administration’s military actions in Venezuela which resulted in the capture of President Nicolas Maduro.

“Venezuela has been ‘liberated’ like Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq were ‘liberated.’ The CIA has staged another hostile takeover of a country at the behest of a globalist psychopaths. That’s it. That’s what is happening, always, everywhere,” Owens posted on X on Saturday. “Zionists cheer every regime change. There has never been a single regime change that Zionists have not applauded because it means they get to steal land, oil and other resources. Hope this helps.”

Owens expressed her sentiment atop a resharing of an account called “Villgecrazylady” with a post that included a two-minute video of far-right podcaster Tucker Carlson discussing Owens’ former Daily Wire colleague Ben Shapiro, an Orthodox Jew.

The account quoted the claims that “Venezuela has banned pornography, banned abortion, banned gay marriage, banned sex changes, and banned usury,” and then stated, “No wonder Ben Shapiro has such a hardon for regime change. Maduro’s an antisemite,” before concluding with a sly-faced emoji indicative of a joke.

As though to put an exclamation point on her sentiment, Owens followed up with another reply, a quote, apparently attributed to Carlson, saying that “Maduro was trafficking drugs — only the Mossad and the CIA are allowed to do that!” The Mossad is Israel’s national intelligence agency.

Owens’ focus on Shapiro — a competitor in the right-wing podcast marketplace who currently surpasses Owens’ 7.5 million X followers with 8 million of his own — continued from the previous day when she also posted about him.

“Look, I have no idea who it is over at the CIA that is responsible for psychological operations but this Charlie Kirk one has failed miserably. Please just end it. There is no amount of our tax dollars that you can spend that can convince us that Charlie was assassinated by a furry-trans named Tyler Robinson who was acting alone,” Owens wrote on X.

“Do we really need to carry this nonsense into 2026?” she continued. “Frankly, the entire operation was sloppy and the subsequent ‘you all have to pretend things makes sense because people are grieving’ has lost its touch. I don’t know who sat back at the office and was like ‘all we need is Tim Pool to scream, Ben Shapiro to stomp his feet, and A LOT of pyrotechnics’ but that employee needs to be fired. Please. End this. It’s so stupid it hurts.”

The tendency to see an Israeli hand behind American power also manifested in the reaction of Venezuelan interim leader Delcy Rodríguez on Sunday. She stated that “governments around the world are simply shocked that the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is the victim and target of an attack of this nature, which undoubtedly has Zionist undertones.”

Despite Venezuela being a far-left socialist government, the similar talking points from Owens and Caracas are not surprising, according to experts.

On Feb. 21, 2024, Deborah Lipstadt — then serving as special envoy to combat and monitor antisemitism for the administration of US President Joe Biden—gave a talk at the University of London in Birbeck, later republished by the State Department, which highlighted the similarities between the far left and far right when it comes to antisemitism.

“One of the most striking aspects of antisemitism today is its ability to transcend traditional ideological boundaries. Simply put, antisemitism is a hatred that can be described as a horseshoe where the far-left and the far-right are closer to one another on the issue of antisemitism than they are to the center,” Lipstadt said. “In fact, recent studies have shown that a better predictor of antisemitism is not a right or left-wing perspective but a conspiratorial worldview and a penchant for authoritarian type of government.”

Lipstadt explained that “rather than the right-left dichotomy, a more accurate predictor of antisemitic worldviews is the adherence to conspiratorial worldviews, anti-hierarchical aggression, and a preference for authoritarianism. This, of course, can describe someone at either end of the political spectrum. This might help us understand how people with conflicting views on a host of – if not all – other issues converge on antisemitism.”

Palestinian media has also seized on this narrative of an Israeli interest in US control over Venezuela.

The Palestine Chronicle reported that on a new episode of its “Floodgate” podcast, “Palestine Chronicle editor Ramzy Baroud speaks with investigative journalist Robert Inlakesh about how regime change in Caracas aligns with Israeli strategic interests, including control over global oil flows, pressure on Latin America, and efforts to weaken Iran’s regional position. The discussion also examines Washington’s role in reshaping regional alliances, the targeting of governments that supported Palestine at the International Court of Justice, and Israel’s renewed push to expand its influence across Latin America.”

There has been no evidence to suggest any Israeli involvement in the US operation to capture Maduro.