Fox News Host Questions if Protesters Are Faking Being Jewish

Fox News host Todd Piro raised questions Friday morning about whether the Jewish protesters attending rallies in support of Palestinians are actually Jewish.

Tensions have increased across the globe in response to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On October 7, Hamas led the deadliest Palestinian militant attack on Israel in history. Israel has since responded with its heaviest-ever attack on the Gaza Strip, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared his country at war.

During a segment on Fox and Friends First, Piro, alongside co-host Carley Shimkus, hosted The Post Millennial reporter Ari Hoffman to discuss his experience witnessing recent pro-Palestinian demonstrations at the University of Washington (UW). Hoffman hosted a speech at the UW campus in Seattle Thursday evening at the same time that a student group, Students United for Palestinian Equality & Return (SUPER UW), hosted a community vigil to honor the Palestinian lives lost in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"What it was was literally a vigil for terrorists," Hoffman said in regards to the SUPER UW event.

Hoffman went on to talk about his perspective of a SUPER UW protest hosted on October 12. According to a report by KCPQ, hundreds of pro-Palestinian supporters gathered on UW's campus for what SUPER UW titled a "Day of Resistance." Some Jewish UW students also attended the rally, reported KING, who told the outlet that they came to stand in solidarity with those who were attacked in Israel on October 7.

"One thing that I find interesting with all these protests, including yours, is the number of people who claim in these protests that they are Jewish," Piro prompted Hoffman. "Are they actually Jewish? What percentage would you say are actually Jewish?"

"Well, I got to say the ones I spoke to that said they were Jewish were definitely not," Hoffman, who is Jewish, responded. "I asked them very basic questions that any Jew of any religious level would know, and they didn't know the answers to any of them.

"It's just like how anybody can identify as anything these days," Hoffman continued. "These people think, since this is an entire intersectional mix of people, that they can identify however they want and by identifying as Jewish this gives them some kind of legitimacy."

Newsweek reached out to SUPER UW via email for comment on Hoffman's statement.

Several demonstrations in support of a ceasefire in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been hosted by the Jewish organizations IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace, including a rally on Wednesday, in which thousands of protesters demonstrated in the U.S. Capitol Building. The Associated Press (AP) reported that over 300 protesters were arrested in the demonstration.