| THE LIE IDF soldiers set Palestinian agricultural land on fire and laughed while it burned – proof that Israeli troops are deliberately destroying Palestinian livelihoods for sport. |
| THE TRUTH The video, shared by Candace Owens, actually shows IDF soldiers responding to a wildfire in the Jordan Valley on Israeli-controlled land. They did not set Palestinian agricultural land on fire. |
| BACKGROUND ➔ On September 1, a video circulated on social media purporting to show IDF soldiers igniting Palestinian farmland while laughing and cheering. Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) shared the clip, writing: “These Monsters Will soon get to enjoy an eternity in flames” — framing it as evidence of deliberate destruction of Palestinian civilian property. ➔ The IDF quickly issued a public clarification, explaining that the footage showed soldiers responding to a wildfire that had broken out in the Jordan Valley, not setting Palestinian farmland on fire. ➔ Comments and reshares on Candace Owens’ initial tweet exceeded 1.5 million in reach — amplifying a miscontextualized clip before IDF clarification could catch up. |
| TRUTH EXPLAINED ➔ The clip misrepresents a wildfire that erupted in the Jordan Valley on the Israeli side of the line, adjacent to an IDF base. Troops arrived to watch the blaze and keep it from reaching their base. They did not set farmland ablaze or target Palestinian property. IDF ➔ This was not an isolated mistake by Candace Owens. It is the latest in a long and documented pattern of false and inflammatory claims she has promoted about Israel and Jews. Again and again, Owens has presented extraordinary accusations as fact to millions of followers, while portraying Israel and Jews as secretly responsible for wars, assassinations and global crises. ➔ Candace Owens’s reshare of the clip drew a comment section filled with violent antisemitic rhetoric, amplifying the false claim far beyond her original post. ➔ This is precisely why a falsely captioned video matters. A dramatic clip, stripped of its real context and paired with an incendiary accusation, can reach millions before a correction ever catches up. Fox News ➔ The Jerusalem Post has documented Owens repeatedly promoting “false flag” conspiracy theories and other claims portraying Israel as secretly engineering major world events. The wildfire video is therefore not an aberration. It follows the same pattern: take an event, assign sinister Israeli intent without evidence, and broadcast the accusation to a massive audience. Jerusalem Post ➔ The AJC has similarly documented Owens promoting Holocaust distortion, blaming Israel for 9/11 and the Charlie Kirk assassination, and urging followers to read Der Talmudjude, a classic antisemitic text. AJC ➔ Antisemitic violence worldwide in 2025 alone killed the highest number of Jews in 30 years. Much of this growing anti-semitism is fueled by social media influencers, such as Candace Owens. Some of these deadly attacks include Jews and supporters of Israel murdered at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., a Colorado flamethrower assault, and the Bondi Beach Hanukkah Massacre. CNN |
| QUOTES “Her (Candace Owens) statements revive hatred against Jews and lead followers to see Jews as manipulative forces controlling America and the world.” – Dennis Prager |
| TAKEAWAY Owens’s post, calling IDF soldiers “monsters” destined for “an eternity in flames” over footage that showed no such thing, is not a one-off. It is one moment in a sustained pattern of antisemitic anti-Israel content delivered to millions of followers across the most powerful distribution platforms ever built. That is the real danger: not one miscontextualized clip, but a creator who has turned viral reach into a machine for normalizing hate. Delete the tweet and the shares, screenshots, and comment-pile outrage keep running, reaching audiences corrections will never touch, fueling the next incident before anyone has finished debunking the last one. |
