Ms. Rachel Says World Leaders Should ‘Be Ashamed’ of Silence on Genocide, ‘Anti-Palestinian Racism’

"It's never been wrong to say starving and bombing kids is wrong,” the beloved children's YouTuber wrote on Instagram on Tuesday.

By Kylie Cheung  |  May 28, 2025 | 11:01am
Screenshot: YouTube LatestPolitics
Ms. Rachel Says World Leaders Should ‘Be Ashamed’ of Silence on Genocide, ‘Anti-Palestinian Racism’

I am not a toddler or the parent of one, so recent headlines are the first I’m learning of beloved children’s programming star Ms. Rachel—and everything I’ve seen has converted me into quite a fan. 

Ms. Rachel, whose real name is Rachel Griffin Accurso, has been using her sizable platform for months now to advocate for the human rights of Palestinian children and condemn Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Accurso has repeatedly shared photos and videos of starving and injured Palestinian children pleading for help, calling on her followers to donate to humanitarian groups and imploring world leaders to take action. And she’s refused to stop despite all the bogus, frankly delusional attacks from right-wingers trying to smear her as a “terrorist” sympathizer for supporting children’s human rights.

On Tuesday, Accurso shared a lengthy Instagram post addressed to world leaders: “Be ashamed of your silence. Be so ashamed that you’ve seen the images & videos we’ve seen & they haven’t moved you to do the right thing. Be so ashamed that you normally speak out for children & human rights, but won’t now because they are Palestinian. … Be so ashamed of your anti-Palestinian racism.”

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Ms Rachel (@msrachelforlittles)

She continued, “Be so ashamed that your constituents are begging & pleading for you speak out and you stay silent. Be so ashamed that you put money & power & your career before the lives of precious children of God. Be so ashamed that our religions tell us to give to the poor, feed the hungry & open our arms to all children & you pretend that they mean only for some children. Celebrities as well. If everyone says something it won’t be controversial anymore. It’s never been wrong to say starving and bombing kids is wrong.”

Last week, Accurso recorded a video alongside Rahaf, a Palestinian child and double amputee who lost her legs in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza. The YouTuber connected with Rahaf after seeing a viral video her watching Ms. Rachel videos while recovering from surgery. In one video posted on TikTok, Accurso wrote that she would do everything she could to help Rahaf and “children everywhere whose human rights are being violated,” and encouraged her followers to support the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. “Thank you to everyone who sees Rahaf like you see your own child and is speaking out for her and children like her,” she wrote. “I love you, sweet Rahaf.”

 

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A post shared by Ms Rachel (@msrachelforlittles)

In a recent interview with Zeteo News, Accurso said, “Our compassion doesn’t have boundaries or borders. We just love kids.” She also argued that, for all the controversy her advocacy has drawn, it should actually be “controversial” to not speak out against an ongoing genocide and its horrific, disparate impacts on children. “I couldn’t look away from the scale and gravity of suffering I was seeing every day,” she also told Newsweek in January. “I wouldn’t be true to myself if I didn’t use that platform to speak out for every child, everywhere.”

Yet, in recent weeks, the New York Times asked her if she’s paid by Hamas (yes, really), and the anti-Palestinian hate group StopAntisemitism called on Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Justice Department to investigate Accurso for ties to Hamas. (Again: Yes, really.) Accurso told the NYT that the allegation she has any ties to Hamas is “absurd” and “patently false.” She continued: “The painful reality is that Palestinian children in Gaza have been killed by the thousands and continue to be killed, maimed, and starved right now. The idea that caring about one group of children prevents us from caring about another group of children is false.”

 

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A post shared by Zeteo (@zeteonews)

Over the weekend, Drop Site News shared videos of a Palestinian girl trying to flee a burning building struck by an Israeli airstrike. Before that, one doctor in Gaza revealed that all nine of her children had been burned alive riding in a truck that was struck by Israeli forces. Another Israeli airstrike struck a school in Gaza city on Monday, killing and reportedly charring the remains of more than 30 Palestinians—18 of them children and six women. 

In November, the United Nations determined that 70% of those killed in Gaza since October 2023 have been women and children. On Thursday, the Gaza Health Ministry reported that at least 16,500 Palestinian children in Gaza have been killed by Israel since October 2023; 14,000 more are on the brink of starvation, the UN warned last week.

Through all of this suffering and carnage inflicted on children, Ms. Rachel has emerged as one of the sadly few public figures advocating for Palestinian children. “I’ve been blessed to get this platform,” she told Zeteo last week, explaining that “silence wasn’t a choice for me.”

“As a teacher, you care about all kids. And I think with so many years of teaching, you just see them all as so similar. They all love to laugh, and they love to learn, and they love to play, and they deserve to play,” Accurso said.

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