THE journalist Mehdi Hasan has interviewed many global leaders as well as celebrities but when he told his friends and family that he was going to interview Ms Rachel, everyone was giddy with excitement. They asked if they could come watch or meet her. He repeated this to Rachel Accurso, known as Ms Rachel to her legion of fans, as it turns out, children and adults.

I admit I didn’t know who she was until I read about the controversy she’s embroiled in. The popular children’s presenter whose toddler learning videos channel has 14.2 million subscribers on YouTube has been facing a backlash since speaking about the suffering of children in Gaza. She says speaking out isn’t wrong [but] “staying silent is”. To clarify, she uses her social media platforms to address these issues and not her YouTube channel which is geared for children.

You already know by now what kind of consequences people have faced for speaking out for Palestinians. It seems like Donald Trump’s pro-Israel policies are shaping the future of higher education — the censure of university professors, international students, even American students who have been outed for their social media posts face discrimination in job searches. The media’s silence still speaks volumes.

What caused so many people (read: Zionists) to turn against Ms Rachel, who set up a YouTube channel in 2016 because she wanted to create visual material for children? Her crime was inviting Rahaf, a three-year-old double amputee injured in a strike by Israel in August last year. She had just learned to walk when Israel bombed her house. She was among eight children who travelled from Gaza to the US in December for medical treatment; she was fitted with prosthetic legs in January. She will need new prosthetics frequently as she is still growing.

The woman known as the ‘toddler whisperer’ is facing attacks.

There are more child amputees in Gaza than anywhere else in the world, according to Unicef estimates, which says that between 3,000 and 4,000 children in Gaza have had one or more limbs amputated. “That small tract of earth is now home to more child amputees per inhabitant than anywhere else in the world,” wrote the Guardian in March.

According to Oxfam, “more children have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli military than in the equivalent period in any other conflict of the past 18 years”.

Ms Rachel has chosen not to stay silent, sharing posts about Rahaf and other children in Gaza, all the while shaming leaders for their silence. One video of a father sitting with his girls in Gaza, in their bombed house, among such devastation will stay with me forever. The smiles on the girls’ faces as they hear Ms Rachel’s voice “can you say beep beep” is distressing; this is the closest they will get to normal.

The influential YouTuber saw Rahaf’s story and invited her to her show earlier this month and then posted about the meeting, which is when the controversy took a new turn, an ugly one. In the video, we watch as Ms Rachel and Rahaf sing Hop Little Bunnies as the little girl, clearly delighted, bounces on her prosthetic legs, laughing and hugging Ms Rachel. It’s like any child except it’s not. It is not normal to learn that Rahaf and her mother do not eat food during their video calls to their family in Gaza — the boys and the father did not receive visas — because there is so little food in Gaza.

For her ‘outspoken’ views, the woman known as the ‘toddler whisperer’ dressed in her headbands and denim overalls with her childlike voice, is facing attacks. “It’s sad that people try to make it controversial when you speak out for children that are facing immeasurable suffering,” she told Me­­­hdi Hasan of Zeteo.

The more the pu­­shback against her, the more she seems committed to keep speaking. And people are listening because there’s no denying her influence.

She has raised money for children in Gaza and been called a mouthpiece for Hamas. An antisemitism advocacy group in the US has called on the US state attorney to investigate Ms Rachel for spreading foreign propaganda. When asked by CNN to comment, she replied: “The idea that caring for one group of children in an emergency situation means you don’t care for another is false, and hurtful.”

I hope to live long enough to see a time where it will be controversial not to say anything.

This brings me to Malala and her silence on Israel’s genocide. Perhaps fear of financial reprisal stops her from speaking openly. My friend Mohsin rightly called her a Miss Do Little. Celebrities who say things like “my heart breaks for all children” just don’t cut it when it comes to the diabolical ongoing plan to starve Pales­tinian children as the world watches. They will be remembered for being on the wrong side of history.

The writer is an instructor of journalism.

Published in Dawn, June 1st, 2025