The complicated and thorny issue of separating support for Hamas and support for Palestinians has sparked a heated debate between a pair of outspoken conservative women.
Radio host Megyn Kelly and The Daily Wire host Candace Owens clashed in a heated social media debate about whether or not the swathes of college students who effectively blame Israel for the bloody invasion launched by Hamas militants on Oct. 7 should be “blacklisted.”
Many college campuses across the country have drawn criticism for having students come out in such vocal support of the Palestinian cause — which many consider as a tacit, if indirect, endorsement of Hamas, as well.
The issue is significant enough that Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri is taking the issue to the Department of Justice.
“The repulsive celebration of terrorism against Israel on America’s college campuses should be called out for what it is: disgusting & immoral,” Hawley posted to X, formerly Twitter, on Monday.
But while Hawley works on moving that forward, a different discussion has emerged — one that has quickly gotten heated.
The conversation appeared to begin with GOP presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy, who took to X to call these pro-Palestinian students “simple fools,” but noted that they shouldn’t be blacklisted.
“The Harvard student groups who co-signed the anti-Israel letter are simple fools,” Ramaswamy posted to X. “But it’s not productive for companies to blacklist kids for being members of student groups that make dumb political statements on campus.
“Colleges are spaces for students to experiment with ideas & sometimes kids join clubs that endorse boneheadedly wrong ideas.”
Ramaswamy then argued that blacklisting these students would be a form of leftist cancel culture — a line of reasoning that Kelly simply didn’t buy.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. They sided with terrorists who murdered children and old women,” Kelly retorted. “You’re not clear on this as someone who wants to be president?”
When Ramaswamy tried to explain the nuance of his position to Kelly, she rebuffed those, too.
That’s when Owens jumped in, and things quickly escalated as she accused Kelly’s rhetoric of being disingenuous.
“Oh stop it,” Owens began. “This is incredibly disingenuous, Megyn. You know that many of those students are not out there because they want babies to be murdered.
“College kids are stupid. I used to be radically pro-choice. Glad I didn’t get put on a ‘conservative’ black list for wanting babies murdered.”
Again, Kelly refused to budge an inch on her seeming position that college kids blaming Israel for Hamas’ attacks should, in fact, be blacklisted.
“Being liberal is not the same as taking to the streets to cheer murdered babies and blame said murders on the victims,” Kelly said. “But you go ahead and hire as many of them as you want Candace. I’m sure the @realDailyWire will love that.”
The lengthy X diatribe didn’t end there.
Owens argued that “misguided” students needed “education, not black lists,” before calling out Kelly’s “pettiness and immaturity” for tagging The Daily Wire in her initial social media salvo.
Kelly swiftly responded:
You can observe the way this “conversation” unfolded below:
While the X fight appeared to end there, neither conservative firebrand appeared to reach any sort of a consensus on whether or not these students should be blacklisted.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.