Ms Rachel learns about Genocide

Changez Ali

Can you say Genocide? Say it back with me: G.E.N.O.C.I.D.E – Genocide. Hurrah. Among the litany of horrors and cruelties that have been perpetrated by the Zionist Occupation Force since it began its full scale genocide in Palestine, perhaps the most bizarre and perverse was the branding of the popular children’s television star Ms Rachel as an antisemite. Ms Rachel, for those who don’t know, is Rachel Anne Accurso, a popular YouTube personality who makes content for children – primarily toddlers – in the vein of Sesame Street, or a visual adaptation of the Jack and Jill books for children (which were popular when people still read books). Ms Rachel’s popularity as a sensation on YouTube since 2019 is built on her very obvious love for and patience with children and toddlers. Beginning as a music teacher for disabled children, she earned a degree in Music Education and a Masters in Early Childhood Education, so she brings a credentialled and well thought out programme of free musical education for tots and children via her channel, which has 19.8 million subscribers and over 15.6 billion views. She also maintains a website and Facebook and Instagram profiles, but YouTube remains her primary content creation platform.
When the hostilities in Gaza restarted in late 2023, on the flimsy excuse that Hamas had carried out various imagined atrocities during an insurgent operation in October of that year that hit parts of southern Occupied Palestine, to those familiar with the history of the conflict it became apparent that speeding the pace, ethnic cleansing and genocide were the main goals of the Zionist military operation. Of course in the US this was not apparent, because the Zionist propaganda machine has for many years built the momentum for precisely such an operation in the political and public consciousness. Ms Rachel was in this regard no different than most Americans, but sadly her humanity got in the way of attempted brainwashing.
It is quite apparent that the effervescent YouTuber heard on the news about the devastating cost of the conflict on children, who were being portrayed in the US media as victims of a conflict where Hamas freedom fighters were using them as human shields. This was obviously not the case, in fact the Zionists make a point of targeting women and children in order to break the will of the people they are fighting. This has always been their modus operandi. In just the first three months of the conflict, 13,000 children and 8,000 non-combatant women were killed with typical cruelty and wanton brutality and when this made the headlines, Ms Rachel took it upon herself to reach out to some of the children and families affected by the conflict. In her American mind it seemed obvious that the Zionists were acting out of the best interests of peace, fighting ‘terrorism’, and so naturally they would be pleased if someone showed humanity to the victims of a conflict that was affecting innocents whom she presumed the Zionists were trying their best to protect. This is the narrative that the Zionist Occupation military has built in the minds of Americans over several generations, blaming the Palestinians for their own destruction and affecting moral hazard in every case of massacre and expulsion.
To this end she invited some Palestinian children onto her show who had been evacuated from Gaza, mostly amputees between the ages of 2-5. The backlash was swift and pointed. Though she had never once mentioned the cause of the amputees and had in fact allowed the dominant narrative to go unquestioned that these were senseless victims of an unavoidable conflict, the Zionist propaganda machinery in the US is coldly mechanical, and wholly committed to eradicating even the possibility of viewing Palestinians as humans, or of any sympathy accruing to them. Ms Rachel, a woman who knew as much about the Palestinian conflict as I know about quantum thermodynamics, was suddenly dragged into the spotlight as a Hamas sympathiser, someone who was endangering Zionist lives, who cared less about them than she did about the lives of ‘terrorists’. This is of course the normal pattern of smearing and delegitimisation that the propaganda machinery snaps into when its dominant narrative is challenged, except in this case the narrative was not being challenged, only the humanity of the opposing side was on display. This was too much and a campaign of media smears, accusations of blood libel and legal actions followed, aimed at destroying the Youtuber’s platform, career, and reputation. The onslaught was so brutal and sudden, like the Nakba, that Ms Rachel was caught completely off guard.
When I said earlier that Ms Rachel ‘knew’ very little about the conflict, I meant it purposefully, because she was to get a quick education on the matter. New York-based propaganda outfit – Stop Antisemitism – wrote to Attorney General Pam Bondi demanding an investigation into whether Ms Rachel was receiving funding from Hamas, Combat Antisemitism said she must be investigated, the Anti-Defamation League named her on its ‘Antisemites of the Year’ list, the City Journal (New York) called her show low budget slop that was a magnet for Hamas sympathisers, and matters really reached a head when she raised more than $50,000 for Save the Children for humanitarian aid to Gaza. Save the Children (that notoriously antisemitic organisation) was trashed publicly by a number of Zionist-linked think tanks and publications, while The New York Times interviewed Ms Rachel and more than implied that she must be receiving funding from Hamas if she felt compassion for Palestinians. The question regularly raised was why she felt Palestinian children were deserving of sympathy when she did not show the same level of interest in Zionist children, irrespective of the fact that 13,000 children in Gaza had by that point been murdered in an active war zone.
It was at this point that Ms Rachel, to her credit, stood her ground. Rather than apologising, she very publicly cancelled her NYT subscription, citing a bias in its reportage on the conflict, she doubled down on communicating with Palestinian children, first online and then hosting several child amputees on her show, wore dresses featuring artwork made by children in Gaza, and made other public gestures of support for children in Palestine, Sudan, Yemen and other places the Zionist military has been active. The accusations against her were so patently absurd that they became fodder for stand-up comedians and light night talk show hosts, and Ms Rachel found herself in that rarified list of individuals who are defamed as antisemites but come out more popular. In the meanwhile it seems Rachel found out quite without meaning to what’s really been going on for the last 75 years – that those who commit genocide don’t do so by accident.
In a statement that walked a middle line but responded to her critics, Ms Rachel said: “I condemn Hamas, I condemn October 7, I condemn taking precious Israeli children and civilians hostage, I condemn killing precious Israeli children and civilians, I condemn war crimes, human rights violations, children’s rights violations.”However, she added, “I condemn the Israeli government, I condemn the killing of precious Palestinian children and civilians, I condemn using starvation as a weapon against children and civilians, I condemn bombing schools and hospitals, I condemn war crimes, human rights violations [and] children’s rights violations.”
For public figures in a country with the level of brainwashing prevalent in the US to take a stand like this is rare, and for someone accused of antisemitism, it is unheard of. In other statements she noted a pattern of Zionist violence against Palestinians, posting “Free Palestine” on a number of occasions, despite pro-Zionist hate groups trying to shadow ban her account and vigilantly watching every ‘like’ and ‘subscribe’. The popular New York based webzine Aish accused her of a “checkered past of antisemitism”, apparently from within the last one year. Similar smears floated through the primarily US-based Zionist propaganda machinery in Jewish Press, Jewish Week, The Jewish Telegraphic News Agency and in the newsletters of the plethora of Zionist think tanks that help shape US policy but, in her case, they hit a brick wall. Ms Rachel was learning about genocide and not just the most recent uptick in genocide, but the 75 years of vicious ethnic cleansing that preceded it: the dehumanisation, the beatings, arrests, murders, rapes, displacements, massacres and lies that make up the content of the Zionist occupation of Palestine. She hasn’t referred to a genocide so far, but it seems she has figured out, like many other people, that one is taking place – has been taking place for many years – and that it’s outlines are defined by strict adherence to a policy of complete dehumanisation that cannot allow even a glimmer of sympathy for the victims.
It turns out that when textbook propaganda bumps up against human interaction, the former tends to lose. In Ms Rachel’s case, we should not assume the story is over. No doubt her name is now on a list and will be stored to be used at such a time as it seems useful for the occupation to smear her further, but until then, at least one person – and maybe some of her audience as well – have realised that all is not what it seems to be in Palestine. For the rest of us the lesson is that it is in the very heartless machinery of genocide that its greatest weakness lies, a blind spot that it is unable to address because of the hubris and cruelty of the exercise. How else could Ms Rachel learn about genocide.