• A pro-Israel group has called for the US attorney general to investigate whether Ms Rachel is a foreign agent after sharing pictures of suffering children in Gaza.
• After raising $50,000 for Save the Children’s emergency funds, social media personality Ms Rachel has been labelled the “antisemite of the week”.
A well-known pro-Israel group has called for US attorney general Pam Bondi to investigate prominent children’s entertainer Ms Rachel for whether she is operating as a foreign agent after sharing sympathies about children suffering in Gaza.
Ms Rachel, 42, whose real name is Rachel Griffin Accurso, has amassed more than 10 billion views after she launched her YouTube channel in 2019.
StopAntisemitism has claimed Rachel’s social media posts about suffering Palestinian children should constitute undisclosed work for foreign entities.
StopAntisemitism’s director Liora Rez wrote in a letter shared with The New York Post: “Given the vast sums of foreign funds that have been directed toward propagandising our young people on college campuses, we suspect there is a similar dynamic in the online influencer space.”
This comes after 42-year-old Ms Rachel just announced the birth of her second child on Tuesday.
StopAntisemitism specifically objects to posts in which Ms Rachel shared reported images of malnourished children in Gaza and cited casualty figures from Gaza’s health ministry that align with UN reports.
The pro-Israel group called for an investigation under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which requires Americans working on behalf of a foreign government or political entities to register as foreign agents with the US Justice Department.
As a result of the genocide in Gaza, UNICEF estimates 25,000 children have been injured, while the UN reports at least 13,319 children have been killed.
StopAntisemitism says the images posted by Ms Rachel showa child who is suffering from cystic fibrosis and not starvation; however, The Washington Post contradicts this claim after interviewing the mother, finding the child is suffering from both starvation and cystic fibrosis.
It has been six weeks since Israel has imposed its total blockade on Gaza, with the entirety of Gaza’s 2.1 million people in a state of starvation.
Ms Rachel’s advocacy started in January this year after she was scrolling on TikTok and saw a young boy, likely younger than 5, who survived an airstrike.
She said: “The look in his eyes has stayed in my mind since I saw the video.
“No child should experience that kind of fear, shock and terror.”
These statements were followed with a fundraising campaign in May in which she raised more than $50,000 for Save the Children’s emergency fund supporting children in conflict zones, including Gaza, in just a few hours.
She wrote in an Instagram post: “I care deeply for all children. Palestinian children, Israeli children, children in the US – Muslim, Jewish, Christian children – all children, in every country.
“To do a fundraiser for children who are currently starving – who have no food or water – who are being killed – is human.”
StopAntisemitism’s history of defaming public figures
StopAntisemitism’s “antisemite of the week” feature on its website has included Gaza-based journalist Bisan Owda, the climate activist Greta Thunberg, the rapper Macklemore, and the actor Jesse Williams.
StopAntisemism describes itself as a Jewish civil rights watchdog and has doxxed pro-Palestinian demonstrators on university campuses and across the United States.
The group seems to be so pro-Israeli that they feel as if publicising the suffering of Palestinian children is antisemitic, something that is rejected even by the controversial IHRA definition of antisemitism.
