‘Suddenly, the keffiyeh-wearing college kids are very quiet’: Where are the pro-Palestinian protesters?
- Elon Gilad
- Oct 22
- 7 min read
On October 9, 2025, at 6:00 a.m. Jerusalem time, the US-brokered ceasefire in Gaza took effect, halting two years of fighting between the terror group Hamas and Israel, claiming over 66,000 people in the Strip according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry that does not distinguish between Hamas and other terror operatives and civilians, and cannot be independently verified.
US President Donald Trump’s deal that includes an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the release of 48 Israeli hostages and nearly 2,000 Palestinian security prisoners, and a promise of 600 daily aid trucks, was heralded as a triumph. Yet, as Hamas executed Palestinians accused of "collaboration" in Gaza City streets and aid deliveries faltered, a curious shift emerged among pro-Palestinian activists and celebrities.
Pro-Palestinian silence as Hamas slaughters Gazans
Once vocal champions of Gaza’s plight, many pro-Palestinian protesters have retreated into silence or pivoted to safer causes, leaving observers to question whether their advocacy was rooted in principle or tethered to public sentiment.
This shift echoes a historical pattern: moments of crisis ignite fervent activism, only for momentum to wane when political landscapes change. The digital battleground of X, where #GazaUnderAttack once amassed 650 million mentions from July to October 2025, now reveals a 50% drop in Gaza-related posts since October 10. This analysis examines the trajectory of key figures – celebrities like Mark Ruffalo and Susan Sarandon, politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and influencers like Shaun King – highlighting their pre- and post-ceasefire engagement, their silence on Hamas’s internal violence, and the implications for the pro-Palestinian movement.
Pre-ceasefire surge: A chorus of solidarity
From October 7, 2023, to October 8, 2025, pro-Palestinian advocacy among Western celebrities and activists was a crescendo of moral outrage. The war’s toll – famine warnings, mass displacement, and relentless airstrikes – galvanized a global movement. Hollywood’s Artists4Ceasefire, with over 500 signatories, raised $2 million for groups like PCRF:
Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) leads the charge through hundreds of X posts accusing Israel of “genocide” (50,000+ likes on average).
Susan Sarandon (@susansarandon) dropped by her agency in 2023 for rally speeches, posted over 50 times, framing Gaza as a “humanitarian catastrophe.”
The Hadid sisters (@gigihadid, @bellahadid) donated $1.5 million, their Instagram appeals reaching 10 million views.
Politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) and Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) pushed ceasefire bills, with AOC’s more than 200 posts and Tlaib’s “genocide” rhetoric (garnering over 100,000 reposts) dominating discourse.
Influencers like Shaun King (@shaunking) raised $5 million via LaunchGood, while @CareForGaza’s $10 million for food and medical aid earned an average of 92,000 views per video.
The digital sphere amplified this fervor. X posts surged to 140 million mentions of “Gaza” in September 2025, peaking at 8.5 million daily around IDF advances in Deir al-Balah. Protests – 25 distinct events in September alone, from London’s 10,000-strong march to Milan’s general strike – filled streets with keffiyehs and “Free Palestine” banners. This was no mere performance: advocates faced real costs. Sarandon lost representation; Tlaib endured congressional hearings. Yet their commitment appeared unyielding – until the ceasefire.
Post-Ceasefire pivot: selective engagement
The October 9 ceasefire brought partial relief but also exposed fault lines. Hamas’s executions of 33 Palestinians for “collaboration,” captured in geolocated videos, tested the movement’s resolve.
In another video, Hamas is seen torturing and executing Palestinians as they beg for their lives. Hamas gunmen are rounding up men in broad daylight, beating them to death for public executions in Gaza City.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry posted on X with the video: “Responsible journalism should shine a light on this.”Yet, among the leading pro-Palestinian voices on X, most fell silent or sharply curtailed Gaza commentary by October 22. X mentions plummeted from 15 million on October 10 to 1.4 million daily, according to X analytics, reflecting a broader retreat.
Mark Ruffalo: Once a linchpin of Artists4Ceasefire, Ruffalo’s account on X has posted nothing on the ceasefire or Gaza since it came into effect. No mention of Hamas executions, despite his prior focus on civilian deaths.
Susan Sarandon posted nothing on the ceasefire or Gaza since it went into effect, except a few reposts of other accounts. Her pre-ceasefire rally presence (40,000 reposts) contrasts with her silence on the subject since the ceasefire began.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: AOC’s more than 200 posts pre-ceasefire turned into complete silence. She posted nothing on the ceasefire or Gaza since.
Rashida Tlaib: With over 300 pre-ceasefire posts on Gaza, Tlaib hadn’t made a single post on X related to Gaza regarding the ceasefire and had stayed silent on the matter until the cease fire was violated by an attack on Israeli soldiers in Gaza that left two dead and the subsequent response. Tlaib attacked “the genocidal apartheid regime” for “once again raining down bombs across Gaza and calling it a ‘ceasefire,’” completely ignoring the attack on Israeli soldiers.
Greta Thunberg: Silent since an October 8 Instagram post (deleted for misusing an Israeli hostage image, per Times of Israel), Thunberg’s climate focus sidesteps Hamas violence entirely.
Roger Waters: Pre-ceasefire defender of Hamas as “resistance” (Daily Mail, 2024), Waters posted nothing post-October 9, focusing on tour promotions and other subjects.
Billie Eilish, Emma Stone, and other celebrities: Hollywood figures, vocal via Artists4Ceasefire pins (2024–2025 Oscars), posted no original posts on Gaza since the ceasefire, ignoring executions despite prior boycott pledges, per CNN and Fox News.
Silence on Hamas: A telling omission
Hamas’s executions – 33 confirmed deaths by October 22, with videos showing blindfolded men shot in public – drew near-universal silence from these voices. The Palestinian Authority and Al-Mezan condemned the “heinous crimes,” according to CNN, but Western advocates avoided the issue, focusing instead on Israeli violations (e.g., Rafah closure). Pro-Israel critics like Monique Beadle, a lawyer at the Jerusalem Institute of Justice, have criticized pro-Palestinian activists for being silent in the face of the murder of Palestinians at the hands of Hamas. The omission is stark. Pre-ceasefire, figures like AOC and Tlaib framed Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack as contextual “resistance” while condemning civilian deaths. Post-ceasefire, their refusal to address Hamas’s executions, despite viral footage, is telling.
As debate intensifies over the post-ceasefire silence of many Western pro-Palestinian activists, critics have pointed to deeper ideological fractures. Writing in the New York Post, Zachary Marschall argues that anti-Israel activism in U.S. universities was never built to survive the end of hostilities. He contends that slogans like “Cease-fire now” functioned as rhetorical shields, rather than genuine peace advocacy, and that the movement’s inability – or refusal – to publicly celebrate the ceasefire exposes its dependence on continued conflict. Marschall highlights disturbing developments like Stanford’s chapter of the anti-Israel Students for Justice in Palestine reposting calls for “death to collaborators,” referencing Hamas’s killing of Palestinian civilians. (New York mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani was a cofounder of his college campus’s Students for Justice in Palestine, which shaped the core of Mamdani’s anti-Israel politics.) He also critiques academia’s reductive “colonizer vs. colonized” lens, arguing it has ill-equipped students to grasp the Middle East’s complexity and left them speechless when Sunni Arab states sided with Israel against Iran. With hostilities paused and President Trump playing a central role in brokering the ceasefire, Marschall suggests many student protesters are now adrift, their moral urgency unmoored from on-the-ground reality.
Even outside activist circles, the retreat has not gone unnoticed. On the October 18 episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, the HBO host questioned the sudden disappearance of student activism, asking, “Where are the protesters?… Suddenly, the keffiyeh-wearing college kids are very quiet.” In agreement, guest Mark Cuban added, “Can’t be found anywhere.” Maher contrasted the earlier wave of campus protests with the muted response to reports of Hamas executing Palestinians, underscoring what he described as “the asymmetry of what goes on.” The segment went viral on X and Instagram, amplifying public scrutiny of selective outrage.
Fewer pro-Palestinian protests, too
Pro-Palestinian rallies around the world have, like posts on the subject on social media, declined following the ceasefire, though not completely stopped. According to websites that promote these events and social media data, since the beginning of the ceasefire, there have been fewer big rallies and protests taking place in North America and Europe. Based on available data, protests seem to have peaked on the second anniversary of the October 7th Attack (October 7, 2025) and have been declining ever since.
Even as global protest activity appears to have diminished post-ceasefire, some student activists insist their movement is far from over. In California, student leaders told the Los Angeles Times they will continue pressing for university divestment from weapons manufacturers linked to Israel’s war effort, despite widespread disciplinary action and legal consequences. “Nothing fundamentally changes at UCLA or colleges in general,” said Dylan Kupsh, a doctoral student and activist, citing ongoing institutional ties to “the oppression of Palestine.” Yet the article also notes that no major California university has met protesters’ demands, and some campuses, like UCLA, have banned local chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine. Professors and students across ideological lines described a climate of polarization, government pressure, and administrative crackdowns – raising questions about the future viability of sustained protest, even as organizers vow to press forward.
Wrap up
The stark contrast between the pro-Palestinian movement’s crescendo of advocacy during the war and its muted presence post-ceasefire cannot be dismissed as mere fatigue. It speaks to a deeper challenge: when the cause ceases to offer a clear moral binary – when Hamas, not Israel, is the one pulling the trigger – many erstwhile allies fall silent. The selective outrage, the reluctance to confront Hamas’s violence, and the vanishing digital solidarity suggest a movement more animated by opposition to Israel than concern for Palestinian lives. This is not a repudiation of the legitimate suffering endured in Gaza, nor a dismissal of decades of dispossession. But if advocacy is to retain moral seriousness, it must be consistent. The real test of solidarity is not found in protest chants or Instagram posts, but in the courage to speak out when it challenges one’s own side. In the wake of the ceasefire, that test is being failed.
Elon Gilad is an Israeli author, journalist, and linguist. His work focuses on uncovering the historical roots of contemporary issues, particularly in current affairs, Jewish history, and the Hebrew language. Gilad is the author of "The Secret History of Judaism." His analytical pieces draw on his diverse background to provide unique insights into complex issues.