PBS’s Amanpour & Co. host Christiane Amanpour showed off her anti-Israel bona fides in a novel way on Thursday, inviting on to her international affairs talk show not a foreign diplomat or dignitary, but "Ms. Rachel," a creator of educational videos for children that include a big helping of Hamas-adjacent propaganda, as tracked by the Jewish civil rights group Stop Antisemitism.
Of course, Amanpour doesn’t portray Ms. Rachel (real name Rachel Griffin Accurso) that way, but as “the kid's entertainer and internet sensation who refuses to stay silent about the horrors raining down on Gaza's children.” Hamas was not even mentioned.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Twenty-eight. That is how many children are being killed every day on average in Gaza, according to UNICEF, who says Israel's bombardments, its siege, malnutrition and starvation are taking the innocent lives of an entire classroom every day. And for many, it has now become impossible to contain their anguish. But one loud and far-reaching voice has been speaking out for a long time….Rachel Accurso, known by millions as Ms. Rachel, has emerged as a powerful and courageous advocate for Gaza's children. Her platforms have amassed 16 million subscribers and over 10 billion views. She's being called the Mr. Rogers of our era. But it comes with a major backlash….
Amanpour poor-mouthed the Palestinians.
AMANPOUR: ....even before you spoke up, it was a hornet's nest of controversy, the idea of speaking up for, let's face it, Palestinian children after October 7th.
The host ran a clip of Ms. Rachel’s emotional blackmail.
AMANPOUR: I want to play this piece of video which is deeply, deeply affecting, and it's two kids, Celine and Sila, watching your show from Gaza surrounded by the rubble of their home and it's just the most incredible image really. What did you think? And they've got joy on their faces too when they see it and they can communicate and maybe for a second they forget where they are. How did that move you?
MS. RACHEL: Oh, it moves me beyond words that I could bring a little bit of joy in the midst of unimaginable suffering, that I could be there for them during a genocide….
“Genocide” is the word of a propagandist.
AMANPOUR: OK. So, tell me, because you yourself are an educator. You know what it means when children aren't in school and these children haven't been in school for, you know, 21 months….
[Snarky aside: So now it’s important that children not miss nearly two years of school?]
MS. RACHEL: Well, I think in your advocacy journey sometimes you get really frustrated because it feels like you're in a nightmare saying, hey, 18,000 kids have been killed. They're the highest cohort of amputee -- child amputees in modern history, you just -- and you just try so hard to get people to move….
Amanpour lamented the backlash Ms. Rachel had suffered, and was sad that even her occasional mention (after public pressure) of the suffering of Israeli children “doesn't seem to satisfy the critics,” who “don't want to see [empathy] for some children.”
The problem isn’t empathy for children, but the production of propaganda that ultimately benefits the rapist, terrorist hostage-takers of Hamas whose invasion of Israel is getting Gazan children killed in war.
Amanpour even called Ms. Rachel “the current generation's Mr. Rogers,” then continued the parallel (while mildly noting Ms. Rachel’s radical posture) comparing former public television persona Fred Rogers’ genuinely compelling moment with a black policeman on a 1969 episode of his show with Ms. Rachel’s propaganda, while suggesting being against Ms. Rachel’s propaganda disguised as a kid’s show as racist, or something. [Click “Expand”]
AMANPOUR: Rachel, yesterday you made a post, you said, you're not comfortable working with anyone who hasn't spoken out about Gaza. That's pretty dramatic. Mr. Rogers himself was quite political in his own way, and that he was a major personality in civil rights. And he had that, you know, moment where he sat with the -- with his legs in a kid's pool with a member of the black community. And it was at a time when there was so much backlash about desegregation and particularly around pools. Whites didn't like in America sharing their pools with blacks at that time. So, you are actually navigating a moment which does demand people to stand on one side or the other of history….”