Infowars host Owen Shroyer debates 'Jewish conspiracies' with antisemitic YouTuber
Infowars host Owen Shroyer dabbled in several antisemitic tropes during a recent half-hour livestreamed debate on YouTube that revolved around “Jewish conspiracies” and whether his boss, Alex Jones, is a secret Zionist shill.
Shroyer appeared Sept. 17 on the YouTube channel “Know More News,” which is run and hosted by a little-known antisemitic conspiracy theorist named Adam Green. Since at least 2014, Green has been using the channel to produce dozens of videos focusing mostly on 9/11 trutherism and bigoted notions that Jews are secretly plotting to take over the world. (One of his videos, straightforwardly titled “The Zionist Plan to Take Over the World,” has racked up more than 120,000 views.)
In recent months, many of Green’s rambling homemade videos have taken on a surprising target: Infowars, a website chock full of xenophobic and antigovernment conspiracy theories ugly enough to recently from multiple social media platforms, including YouTube. Green’s hypothesis about Infowars appears to be that Jones is being blackmailed by Israeli secret agents to stop him from being critical of Israel or the Jewish people more broadly.
Shroyer went on “Know More News” to defend Infowars against what he described as Green’s “weird shit.”
Rather than pushing back against antisemitism, however, Shroyer agreed that “Jewish conspiracies” were afoot in America but that Infowars doesn’t focus on those because “there’s a lot of other stuff at play.”
Indeed, Shroyer has discussed other topics during his time at Infowars. He that tech companies will use an “internet kill switch” to shut down the web in the aftermath of a presidential assassination. He that former First Lady Michelle Obama is secretly a transgender woman who wants to bring “Satanic culture” into the mainstream. Recently, he announced the formation of an Infowars “street army,” complete with ranks, intended to provoke backlash at non-political events.
But in the heated back-and-forth during his appearance on “Know More News,” Shroyer went broad at times, saying Green was too focused on Jewish conspiracies and couldn’t compete with his knowledge of other supposed conspiracies.
“There’s the secrets of the Egyptian pyramids,” Shroyer said. “Bro, there’s all kinds of stuff out there!”
“No no, we’re not talking about the pyramids,” Green said, trying to cut him off.
“You just focus on one thing. There’s the mysteries of Antarctica. There’s the mysteries of space. There’s the mysteries of ocean (sic),” Shroyer said.
“You can’t just ignore one thing,” Green said.
“No, dude, you just focus on one thing,” Shoyer said.
“Dude,” Green said.
“I’m everywhere, dude. I’m expansive,” Shroyer said.
Much of the half-hour was spent with Green trying to get Shroyer to respond to a sort of virtual corkboard of information that he believed proved Infowars and its staff are “hardcore Zionist propagandists.” At times, Shroyer responded to the allegations by engaging in false stereotypes of Jewish people.
One such moment came after Green played a video clip of another Infowars host, Paul Joseph Watson, responding to a question about “Jewish influence in the media.”
In the clip, Watson pushed back on the notion:
People who are obsessed with Jews controlling the world never seem to present any evidence. I mean, I read the news every day. I track narratives that the mainstream media comes out with. I don’t see a big Jewish influence. I mean, Jewish people aren’t really that present. You don’t really notice them anywhere. I don’t believe in this Jewish conspiracy.
Shroyer distanced himself from his own colleague on the matter, choosing instead to go along with the antisemitic trope.
“Paul Joseph Watson, in that video, I would say that he’s just wrong,” Shroyer said. “If he doesn’t know about Jewish influence in American media and stuff, then I would say he’s just wrong.”
At another point, Shroyer sounded exasperated as he tried to talk over Green.
“Look dude, there’s plenty of Jewish conspiracies out there,” he said. “OK, there’s plenty of Jews that are greedy and corrupt and all that.”
Green kept pushing accusations that Infowars acts as a “Zionist gatekeeper” while Shroyer rolled his eyes, threw his hands in the air or laughed at the allegations. Ultimately, the Infowars host tried to end the discussion on what he described as “a good note.”
“I think you’re probably a good guy. I think we’d probably get along,” he told Green.
Green responded by calling Shroyer and his colleagues “Zionist shills.”
Shroyer didn’t leave until getting in one more bit of sniping.
“Dude, I’m just telling you this,” Shroyer said. “I’m telling you this because I care about you.”
“You’re impossible to debate. You’re worse than a liberal, man,” Green said.
Neither was engaging directly the other by that point.
“OK, I’m just telling you this because I think you’re a good person,” Shroyer said. “I’m sure there are tons of Jewish conspiracies out there. Zionists are real. It’s all real. That’s not it. There’s other stuff out there. There’s a lot of other stuff at play. That’s all I’m telling you.”
“The New World Order is a Jew world order and the Zionists did 9/11,” Green said.
“Goodnight. Goodnight. Goodnight,” Shroyer said. “It’s been fun. You’re a good person. Peace and love. Peace and love. Goodnight.”
