The censorship campaign against opponents of Israel’s genocide in Gaza reaches new levels of shamelessness—and absurdity and desperation—on an almost daily basis.

The extension of this witch hunt to children’s content creator Rachel Griffin Accurso—known to millions of children worldwide as “Ms. Rachel”—underscores the role of the corporate media in attempting to browbeat public hostility to Israeli’s extermination campaign.

In 2019, Accurso launched Songs for Littles on YouTube. Experiences with her own son’s speech delay initially inspired the show, which focuses on language development, but also teaches about toilet training and other developmental skills.

Ms. Rachel’s simple, engaging content has earned her over 15 million YouTube followers, 11 billion views (400 million a month), a 2023 “Streamy” award for best program in the kids and family category, and as of January, a Netflix series, Ms. Rachel. Good Housekeeping jokingly noted in January that

the biggest thing going in youth culture today is undoubtedly Ms. Rachel and her Songs for Littles. Okay, that might be really, really young youth culture.

To her credit, Accurso has used her Instagram presence to oppose the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza, and its impact on children in particular. UNICEF reported May 27 that 50,000 children have been injured or killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023. This is no doubt an underestimation.

Accurso posted a particularly moving video March 27 showing two Palestinian children on their father’s lap watching an episode of Ms. Rachel on a smart phone. The background is rubble and the post caption reads, “My friends Celine and Sila in what used to be their home in Gaza. They deserve to live in a warm, safe home again. They deserve to be children.”

On April 7, the notorious Zionist “grassroots watchdog organization” StopAntisemitism posted Accurso’s face in a segment called “Antisemite of the Week” and called on Donald Trump’s attorney general Pam Bondi to

investigate whether or not Ms. Rachel is being remunerated to disseminate Hamas-aligned propaganda to her millions of followers, as this may violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

The hit piece says Accurso “appears to have transformed into a mouthpiece for Hamas” and that “she spreads vile propaganda against the Jewish state” because Accurso cites figures on death and destruction derived from Gaza’s health ministry and the UNRWA.

The method employed—appealing to the chief prosecutor of a far-right regime to investigate and take legal action against someone—should indicate the political character and journalistic pedigree of StopAntisemitism. The website is the project of Liora Reznichenko, a self-styled “refugee from the former Soviet Union” who uses her social media and marketing background to hound critics of Israel in the style of the “Me Too” campaign.

Reznichenko (“Rez”) follows the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism (equating the state of Israel with the Jewish people) and boasts that her website “has created an environment where those who propagate hatred against the Jewish people are met with real-world consequences including but not limited to job loss and school expulsions.” Its tactics include doxxing and slander.

On the same day as the “Antisemite of the Week” post, the gutter press New York Post essentially turned it into a press release, interviewing Reznichenko. But even the writers of this pitiful rag felt compelled to ask if StopAntisemitism had any evidence that Accurso was being paid to “spread propaganda.”

Reznichenko’s reply consists wholly of amalgam:

“It’s not a secret influencers such as Ms. Rachel often have paid collaborations on social media. That being said, we could not help but notice post-10/7, Ms. Rachel posting a massive barrage of anti-Israel propaganda. This was at the same time as other social media influencers were being paid to post,” Rez said.

In other words, there is no evidence whatsoever.

The next round of hearsay bootstrapping came from the New York Times May 14, in a piece insidiously titled, Why Tot Celebrity Ms. Rachel Waded Into the Gaza Debate.

The piece by culture correspondent Marc Tracy is a medley of deceptive rhetorical methods. As the headline indicates, the foremost among these is the subterfuge of false balance. There is no “Gaza debate” any more than there is an “ongoing war in Gaza.” There is a systematic slaughter of the Palestinians taking place. Various international agencies and institutions have found that genocide is underway; Israel’s political and military leaders openly tout their ethnic cleansing operation.

Waxing concerned over the sanctity of hearth and home, Tracy muses that

the stakes surrounding what Accurso says can seem higher than for a typical celebrity, because families who play her videos are inviting her into their most intimate space: their own toddlers’ attention. Accurso is herself a parent of two young children.

This would apply to those infants and toddlers with Instagram accounts, because none of the Gaza content finds its way into Ms. Rachel, the show, as the author noted in the fourth sentence of this very piece.

Nevertheless, “Accurso’s activism has divided Jewish parents distraught by the relative dearth of posts about Israeli children, with whom many Jews worldwide feel a powerful connection.”

In support of this claim, Tracy cites one teacher at a Jewish day school in London, who then says what some parents apparently said.

The New York Times emailed questions to Accurso, including the big bomb shell: did she receive money from Hamas? The “newspaper of record” has the temerity to ask this question solely on the basis of a piece of Zionist hatchet work!

One can admire her response, “This accusation is not only absurd, it’s patently false.”

But, the Times assures, “She did not dispute that she has posted more frequently about Gazan children.”

Caught red-handed! How could Accurso escape this charge, posting “more frequently” about Gazan children because they were being massacred “more frequently”? 

“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” she replies, adding, “the idea that caring about one group of children prevents us from caring about another group of children is false.”

In addition to its investigative veneer, Tracy’s piece has a sneering tone throughout, from his title “Tot Celebrity” who “Waded into” a debate to the belittling description of Accurso’s work:

“Parents revere her pedagogical practicing of skills like waving, clapping and pronouncing consonants.”

In reality, the New York Times is waving, clapping and pronouncing its pedagogy in alignment with the US State Department and the murderous Netanyahu regime. This is not journalism, but propaganda, designed to intimidate and silence dissent. The Times, long a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party and the American foreign policy establishment, has once again demonstrated its role as an enforcer of ideological conformity. 

Rachel Accurso has dared to say what tens of millions of working people around the world feel instinctively: that the mass killing of children is unacceptable, and that silence in the face of such crimes is unjustifiable. Her advocacy is not “wading into a debate”—it is legitimate and, one might add, elementary political activism. Quite rightly, Accurso recently told an interviewer that “it should be controversial to not say anything.”

The psyop against “Ms. Rachel” is part of a broader campaign to suppress opposition to the U.S.-backed Israeli war on Gaza, which has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions. Artists, including Kneecap’s Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh and Kehlani, who speak out are being targeted with blacklists, firings and even police repression. The ruling class fears the growing international movement against imperialist war and is lashing out at anyone who gives voice to it.

The World Socialist Web Site defends Accurso and all those who refuse to be silent in the face of genocide. Her courage should be celebrated, not condemned.