Debunking Social Media Lies | Montana Tucker
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I think meeting the kids really hit me in a different way. One time I broke down and cried when I was with one of them. The other times I felt like I really had to stay strong. And then when I got back to my hotel after filming that day, I think I just like all my emotions came out. Because you can't understand like not only the trauma that they dealt with

either when they were taken hostage or I interviewed a kid who saw Hamas kill both of his parents right in front of him. And then he had to hide under his mother's dead body for a few hours so that Hamas would think that he was dead as well. Can you imagine laying under your mother's dead body just to survive?

Montana Tucker is a multi-talented influencer and activist whose social media following of over 14 million on platforms like TikTok and Instagram has made a tremendous impact on how young Americans absorb information about Israel and anti-Semitism online. Montana's viral content ranges from dancing on Hollywood Boulevard to man-on-the-street interviews that gauge the public's perceptions about Zionism and the war in Gaza.

This December, Montana will share her latest documentary, The Children of October 7, where she interviews the child survivors of the kibbutz attacks as they survey their damaged homes and pay homage to the family members they've lost.

In today's episode, Montana discusses her experiences touring college campuses, the most common misconceptions she hears about Israel, and her takeaways from personally meeting with the victims of the October 7th attacks. Using the power of dance and storytelling, Montana has inspired so many to utilize their creative platforms for good. Stay tuned for this wonderful conversation with Montana Tucker on the latest episode of the Sunday Special.

Montana Tucker, thanks so much for taking the time. Really appreciate it. Thanks for having me again. Yeah, so let's talk about, for those who don't know your story, how you got into Israel activism. This is not your bag. This is not how you started. So how did you get to where you are right now doing what you're doing?

It's crazy that this is now my whole life, but I'm so thankful for it. And I couldn't think of doing anything else. My grandparents are Holocaust survivors, and I grew up hearing their stories my entire life. Never forget. Never again. And my grandparents spoke at all the schools down in South Florida and around the world. And to anyone that would hear them, they would share their stories. And I would hear about what they had to go through, what Jews had to go through. And I...

Really, that never again and never forget stood with me my whole life. And when my Zadie passed away four years ago at the age of 97, my grandma is still alive today at age 96. I just knew that I had to now take over their legacy and their goal and their mission. And when October 7th happened specifically, something came over me that it was like, okay, this is now over.

my time. I have a platform of a combined following of 14 million followers. If I don't use it to educate people of what is actually going on, the truth of what is going on, you know, I've been back to Israel now three times. I'm going again in a few weeks, and I'm trying to interview as many people as I can and show the truth about what is going on. So, you know, let's talk about how you got to 14 million followers, because this is a pre-existing following before you started doing the Israel activism. You're by a

So what was it like training for that? How do you build up a following that big? Yeah, so I did build my following on dancing, on singing, on acting. I would, you know, collaborate with Paul Abdul, Terry Crews, Lance Bass from NSYNC, Ric Flair, the wrestler. So I would really collaborate with all kinds of amazing people. And that's what people followed me for. So when I did my Holocaust series,

Specifically, that was a really big risk for my platforms because people were not following me to see me cry and to see me talk about something so serious, especially the Holocaust. They were following me to see me dance on the streets and, you know, sing. So it was definitely a big risk and I think shock to the world, but it really made a huge impact.

And, you know, especially when I first started talking about Israel, I lost hundreds of thousands of followers. The death threats, I mean, I'm sure you can fully understand and relate the death threats every day. Still to this day, the death threats that I get are insane. But I also gained a whole new...

following of people who really share my morals and values and missions. And not only is it the echo chamber of Jews or pro-Israel activists, I really have a following of people of all races, religions, walks of life who are now actually being educated about this and now really are understanding what's going on. So did you spend a lot of time in Israel before October 7th? I went on Birthright. That was my first time 11 years ago on Birthright. And I fell in love.

Absolutely. I just hadn't gone back, not for any specific reason. I just hadn't gone back. But I always would talk about how I needed to go back. And now I can't. Now they can't keep me away. I'm like, my mom literally has to drag me out of Israel. I'm like, I want to be there 24-7. So where were you when October 7th happened? I was actually in LA. And I was actually going to celebrate one of my great friend's birthdays that day. And I don't know about you, but when I found out, it was like,

I felt like I got hit by a truck and obviously I'm just in my nice apartment in LA and I felt like my whole world just crashed. And I don't know if it's like generational trauma or what it is exactly, but I think most Jews around the world specifically felt this feeling.

And I just like, I couldn't do anything. I ended up not leaving my apartment for a whole week. I felt sick to my stomach. I felt guilty even enjoying my beautiful view while this is going on in Israel. And I think that is what really instilled this, like, I need to do everything that I can in me. I went to a rally. The first time I kind of left was a rally that they had in Los Angeles. And I marched with Floyd Mayweather, actually. He's been awesome. I don't know how familiar you are, but he's...

gone to Israel now, I think twice or three times since October 7th. And he's donated so much and really has, he really cares so much. And it's, it's amazing. Um, so we marched like the entire time side by side. Um, and that was kind of my first time leaving. And then my first time at a rally actually, now I've been to like hundreds since, but that was my first time at a rally. And I was like, okay, there are so many other people that are here feeling the exact same

way that I'm feeling. We're in this together. I can do this. And then that kind of inspired me to go full force. For me and for my family, obviously, there's sort of a double whammy. So one was we'd gotten back to America from Israel. We'd been there for the Jewish holidays. So we'd gotten back October 6th. And so my in-laws were still in Jerusalem at the time. So we had a lot of friends and family, obviously, over there. And so I think there were really kind of three major

issues that came up for Jews in America. One was, many of us know people in Israel, many of us have friends and family in Israel, and so you know, it's such a small country and it's such a small community that you obviously know people who are directly impacted by everything that's going on, and if you don't, you're one degree removed from somebody who's either been killed, kidnapped, or had to fight in the army over there in order to stop this sort of stuff. So that was

That was number one. Number two was the shaking of a feeling of security the Jews around the world had had prior to October 7th. So if you weren't living in France where you're under some sort of constant sort of assault, low-level assault, if you aren't living in Denmark where, as it turns out, there's some real problems –

but you're living in America, which has been the friendliest country in the history of the world to Jews. If you're living in the United States, this is not an issue that you've really had to deal with, like widespread antisemitism. Even people like me, where I got hit with a huge wave of antisemitism in 2015, 2016, for example, it didn't really impact my daily life in any serious way other than I needed a little bit of extra security. But the idea that my world was shaped by antisemitism in some serious way, it never really occurred to me. And I think that was true for virtually every Jew, including Jews,

many Jews in Israel who had come to sort of just understand that they live in the world's roughest neighborhood. And that was just kind of the norm, but there was a powerful army. There was a powerful state that was going to protect them from this sort of stuff. And then it didn't. And when that happened, I think that the feelings of vulnerability, uh,

obviously skyrocketed for Jews, not just in Israel, but around the world. And then there was the, what I say was sort of the triple whammy here, which was the antisemitic response to October 7th, which was the thing that truly astonished me. I wasn't shaken by anything except the evils of October 7th, about October 7th, because it turns out there are people who want to murder Jews in that region of the world, and they're quite plentiful. The part that was shocking to me was the immediate response by hundreds of thousands of people across the West, including in the United States,

before Israel had even responded to October 7th, to essentially side with Hamas and take the side of the people who are doing the murdering, the raping, the pillaging, the kidnapping. That was an amazing shock to the system. Well, that just shows you that I think this has been built up inside of them for a long time. And I think that it just now looks socially acceptable. And for a long time, I feel like it wasn't as socially acceptable to be just flat out anti-Semitic. But now, literally,

Literally, as we see on social media, as we see on the campuses, it's literally popular and trending to be anti-Semitic, anti-Israel. Like, I'm seeing it so much on social media. It's crazy what videos, like, are going viral are really these hateful things.

videos of people who have no skin in the game or people who have no clue truly about the conflict. But social media, it's like pushing this. And on campuses, kids who feel maybe like they haven't found themselves or they haven't found a group, they're seeing how it's popular to do these encampments or it's popular to do these crazy protests. So they're following along because they want to feel like they're a part of something. It's crazy. How much of that do you think is social media? So you spent...

like an enormous amount of time and effort, obviously, on social media. You built your career on social media. So if we hear at Daily Wire, obviously, whether you're talking Facebook or YouTube, you're talking TikTok, any of those social media sites have been a boon for independent content creators. But there's no question that the algorithm is particularly a TikTok algorithm.

have been virulent in generating extraordinary anti-Semitism and broadcasting that anti-Semitism to an ever larger crowd. Unfortunately, I blame social media for a lot of it. I think that this is where kids aren't watching CNN and Fox all day long. They're just not. They're on their phones. You know, that's what they're getting their information. Kids literally search

Like, I go to Google still. I don't know about you when you're looking something up, but the younger generation goes to TikTok. They search on TikTok for any of their news, for any of their information that they want to know. They don't go to Google. They go literally to TikTok. And TikTok, I think, is the most toxic place. It's sad to me because that's my biggest platform. I have 9.2 million followers just on TikTok alone. And it's been the...

an incredible part of my career and my life. And it used to be a place that I feel like was so loving and accepting of everyone. Like it didn't matter what you looked like, where you're from, like anyone had the opportunity to go viral. And I feel like it would push like the more unique you were, like the better on TikTok. Like I really loved that about the app. And I feel like now it's turned into like

such a hateful place that videos don't get removed when they should. And videos are getting removed when they shouldn't. Like I'll have a video that gets 5 million views on Instagram and on TikTok, it'll get taken down immediately when there's nothing in the video that should be taken down for, you know, there's no question that, that the CCP, which effectively runs TikTok, it's a Chinese app that, that the, the material that they have promulgated to the West on TikTok is

Number one is very different from the stuff they allow in China. In China, they legitimately shut down an enormous amount of material to prevent any sort of criticism of the regime or westernization of the country. But they've been openly promulgating anti-Naziism.

anti-Semitic content in the hope that it will split the West. I mean, I don't think there's any question that it's an actual strategy. Of course. That's why I keep trying to do as much as I can to debunk any of that. And that's why I keep going back to Israel. I keep interviewing. I've met with so many of the release hostages. I just filmed a documentary called The Children of October 7th on my last trip to Israel because I don't care what people think about the conflict or what side you're on or how much you think. When you hear from these kids, these kids were there. They were there that day.

They're sharing their real personal stories, not anything political or anything of opinions of anyone else. They are sharing what actually happened to them. And I feel like that's why I try to share those because everyone can relate in some way, whether they, everyone has a, had a, have, has a mom, a dad, a sister, a brother, a cousin, like someone they feel like they can relate to. And when you hear these stories, um,

I think they really open people's minds. So obviously spending the last year doing this, what have been the most frequently asked questions to you? Because you've been going around to college campuses and talking with people. What are the most common questions that you've been getting and how do you answer those? Oh, so many. I think like a thing that people don't realize that this is not specifically about the conflict, but I'm sure you know as many times as you've been to Israel, like how Israel is an apartheid state.

I think that's such a, that one bothers me so much because you land in Israel. And I think I've never seen a more diverse group of people in one area. Like it's insane and amazing and beautiful how many different types of people coexist in Israel. It's really beautiful. And I think that's something that people don't know. They think it's just like white Jews that live there.

And there are so many different types of Jews that live in Israel, too. So I think that is something that I'm really trying to show as well. And people ask a lot of the times, like, oh, is it just like white Jews that live there? And they think that no Arabs live there at all. The statistics are incredible of like how many actually live there and live there peacefully. And I've talked to them. I'll go up to them and ask them how they feel. I don't know if you're familiar with the Druze community. Yes.

but which they're incredible. And I've met with them and they said Israel's the most amazing place they've ever been and they love it. Or a group of South African like

20-year-olds, we met them on the beach of Tel Aviv. We asked if they were just visiting and they said, no, we live here. We've lived here for a few years. We're Israeli. This is the best decision we've ever made. So I think those are some misconceptions that people always ask. I think also hearing from Israelis, everyone truly wants peace there. I think that's something that also is getting so

misconstrued. Like they want peace. They want this to end. They want peace. You know, obviously everyone wants to get rid of Hamas. That's not a question. But they want peace. They want peace there. And I think that there's just such a misconception of Israel and Israelis. I mean, the last part that you speak about there is so obviously true. If you spend any time there and if you meet anyone, I mean, here's the thing. In the West, very few people have actually served in the military.

The draft in the United States ended during the Vietnam War. That's now 50 years ago. So it's been a very long time since you've had mandatory military service in the United States. Mandatory military service is the way that it is done in the state of Israel. If you hit 18, you're going to the military. And now they're starting to end exemptions even for the Haredim, for the ultra-Orthodox. It really means pretty much everybody except for actually Arabs who are not drafted.

is bound to do either army service or military service or national service rather. And if you're a parent, do you want your kids in Gaza? If you're a parent, are you desperate to have your kids up in Lebanon? Like if you're a parent, your kids hit 18. And I know all these parents. I mean, they're my age and they're looking around and they're saying, my kid's hitting 18.

The last thing I want is that, but that's what it takes to survive in this rough neighborhood. We would love a point where that doesn't have to happen in this rough neighborhood. Nobody wants to be doing this stuff. These people all have jobs. The number of people who were called up

to the military after October 7th. It's like hundreds of thousands of people. I mean, it literally cleaned out nearly every business in the country. You had people who were working in the banking sector in Tel Aviv were getting called up. You had small business owners who owned a pizza shop were getting called up. People who had six, seven, eight kids were getting called up. I mean, they mobilized pretty much everyone in the country after October 7th. And many of the Israelis who are getting wounded and killed in combat are people with small kids or people who have their own business. And because, again,

again, in the United States, there is no war front in the United States that is immediate. And the closest thing you can come to it is probably the southern border. But the southern border is still not nearly as violent, obviously, as southern Lebanon is right now, or the Gaza Strip is right now, or even places like Jenin or Nablus. Like the immediacy of the geography is something that I think a lot of people don't understand, because especially if you live in America, this is an enormous, amazing country. I mean, we have, you know, it spans 3,000 miles

in terms of its width. And the state of Israel at its closest point, if you're talking about ignoring the West Bank, is

is nine miles wide. I mean, it's the distance from where we're sitting to like the Atlantic Ocean right now. It's tiny. And so when people talk about, well, why does Israel need to be so militaristic? Why do they need such a big army? Why do they need all this kind of stuff? It's because you're talking about a state that's half the size of New Jersey. That's why they need that. And I, you know, what happened with, and I don't know if we're talking too much about what happened in Amsterdam, but that also proves why Israel needs to exist.

I think that is like one of the perfect examples of why Israel needs to exist and why the calling for the globalizing the intifada, what that actually means. And I don't know. I think that

Israel is so criticized. It's the most criticized state in the entire universe. But you're right. It's something that needs to exist, and we need to protect it at all costs. And they're constantly, at every angle, being attacked. And speaking of the soldiers, I visited a lot of the hospitals. I'm sure you did as well. And it is amazing to meet these people who got out of their normal lives, like you said. They were doctors. They were lawyers. They were working at banks. And they had to get up and leave and

Their resilience, though, and even though this is not something that they probably wanted to go do, they will go and fight for their country and for their people and do whatever it takes to save their people. And I think that is something that is so beautiful.

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Yeah. I think, I think one of the things that October 7th has made clear in the period since, including what happened in Amsterdam. And for those who missed it, what happened in Amsterdam is that there was a soccer match between the Dutch national team and the, and Maccabi Tel Aviv, which is a team that's based obviously in, in Israel. And, um, and a bunch of Israeli fans were there for the soccer match. Uh, some of them in the, in the lead up or were sort of getting into shouting matches with, with Palestinian protesters who'd shown up with Palestinian flags, uh, got a little bit rowdy before the game. And then after the soccer match, uh,

There were organized bands who were chasing those Jews down and other Jews who were in the city and beating them, trying to run them over with cars, forcing them to jump into the canals, trying to break into hotels where people were actually just staying. It was essentially an excuse to break into a violent riot or a violent pogrom against Jews. And, you know, the reality of the necessity for the state of Israel is obviously clear, particularly for people in Europe. There is this great and ridiculous irony where

In the aftermath of October 7th, you'll see people who hate Israel say that the Jews should go back where they came from. Of course. I get those comments all the time. Oh, right. Because the implication being, of course, that the Jews are European, which ignores, number one, the history, which is that the Jews are innate to the region, that they are, in fact, indigenous to the region. Number two, that...

probably half of Jews, maybe more than half at this point, who live in Israel and Mizrahi, meaning that they're Sephardi, meaning they're from the actual Arab countries that surround that area. My in-laws are Moroccan, and my wife is Moroccan. So she's not European in any way, shape, or form. So the irony of go back to Europe, and then in Europe, Jews are having the shit kicked out of them on the streets, or they're being attacked in France for being Jewish. There have been significant

attacks on Jews in France, including murder. And Jews are realizing this now moving to Israel and then being told, no, no, no, you have to go back where, quote unquote, you came from, which would be the places where, you know, they committed a genocide like 80 years ago and where an actual honest to God murder, every Jew genocide and places where pogroms are still existing today. Thanks to many of the expats from the Middle East. Right. I mean, it's many of the people who are committing, I would say most of the people who are committing the anti-Jewish violence in Europe right now are not

natives of Europe. There are people who are coming from the Middle East and Northern Africa. They're Muslim and they're going and they're radical Muslim and they're going and they're hurting Jews in Europe. It's hard to even square the argument, but it's not a good faith argument in the first place. It's not. And I think for me, seeing this and hearing this, it just, I heard my grandparents' stories. They were exactly like this. Like, this is literally how the Holocaust started.

you know, these types of revolutions or attacks, et cetera. But the whole world, the difference is like Jews around the world now can speak up. Like we have a voice. We're able to speak up. We're able to do something. So when we see this and non-Jews, this is the time everyone needs to step up.

and say, this is not okay. Like, this is unacceptable. Enough. Enough. And like they always say, you know, what starts with the Jews doesn't end with the Jews, number one. And the West, it could be next. And that's why everyone needs to take this extremely seriously. I think that this is one of the big points, is that what's happening right now

is not indicative just of hatred of Jews. It is indicative of a hatred of the West that has been imbibed throughout Western civilization, particularly in young people. It's not everybody who's young, obviously. It's a...

That's a minority plurality, depending on where you are, of young people who now believe this anti-Western claptrap that basically the West is guilty for exploitation and evil. And anybody who is successful is an oppressor and anybody who is unsuccessful is the oppressed. And when that matrix is then applied to the Middle East, where Israel is wildly successful, being a country of seven and a half million Jews, a couple million Muslim Arabs.

some Christians as well. The total population of Israel is about 10 and a half million. A country of 10 and a half million is the militarily dominant force in the region, the economically dominant force in the region without any natural resources. Israel is not a country that has oil. I mean, now they have oil in Leviathan oil fields offshore. That was found like five, 10 years ago. It's not as though Israel built its capital off the back of just drilling the way that virtually every other country in the region did.

Israel has a Western-style government with Western-style property rights, Western-style GDP, Western-style living standards. And it's specifically because of that that people hate Israel. That's the real reason that people in the West

who are on the left particularly hate Israel is because the idea is that Israel is too successful. The reason they're successful is because they're exploitive colonizers and anti-colonization has to happen not just in Israel, but in the rest of Western civilization. The anti-colonization mentality, the decolonialism mentality, they're applying it to Israel, but that's just because

it's easy to externalize that particular argument to the Middle East. What they really mean, and people will say this if they're honest about it, is that they want to decolonize America. And what they really mean by that is they just want to tear down all the systems. Yep. Yep. I hope eventually the entire world wakes up and really realizes that. Do you think it's changing? Do you think people are slowly returning? I do. I think the backlash is here. Yeah. I think the backlash is here. I think that, I mean, you see it in the Netherlands where Gert Wilders has been saying, like, this needs to stop for years. And he went from being

a supposed fringe voice to being the largest party in his parliament. You're seeing it across Europe, whether the European parties wish to acknowledge it or not. Everybody is moving to the right, whether it's Maloney in Italy, whether it's Millet in Argentina, like across the world, there's a backlash that's coming for what I've termed sort of the scavenger mentality. I've suggested that the world is now divided, unfortunately, between lions and scavengers. Lions are people who want to create, they're people who want to go to work, have a job, innovate, build,

build, have communities, have families and live within a system of property rights and free speech and duties and values. And then you have scavengers who just want to tear all that stuff down because they think that all that stuff is a system of exploitative colonialism and that has to be torn down. And that anytime somebody fails, it's not because they've made bad decisions.

It's because the system has victimized them. And I think we are, I think Western civilization is tired of this. Honestly, I think, I think Western civilization is looking at this and we're saying, no, I think, and it's manifesting in all sorts of ways that have nothing to do with Israel. I think that you're seeing this,

With young people, frankly, I think there's going to be a backlash among young people who are tired of being told that they are the representatives of a civilization that is evil and bad, and the only way that they can expiate their guilt is to be failures and side with failures. And I think that there are a lot of people who are like, no, you know what? I'm not interested in that. I think you saw that in the election in the United States. I think that you're going to see that in elections around Europe. I think the rising power of right-wing parties in Europe, which...

You're starting to see people trying desperately to hold back. I don't think they're going to be able to contain it because it turns out that things like open borders where you ship in people who hate your values, people don't like those things. It turns out that people don't like being told that the best they can hope for from their life is

sort of this gradual decline into irrelevance and that you should feel guilty over the success of your civilization. It's a not hopeful message. I think people are rejecting it. So I think the backlash is coming. And I think that, again, because everything happens in the Middle East first, because that's where the borders are the closest. I think that you're seeing that in Israel. Israel is a great example of this. I mean, just the Israeli body politics is an amazing example of this. If you go back just...

A year and a half ago, the Israeli body politic was tearing itself apart over things like judicial reform. There was an internal issue over how much power should be delegated to the judiciary versus how much power should be delegated to the parliament in the state of Israel. And you had massive, huge, open protests, hundreds of thousands of people in the streets.

open talk about civil war in Israel, which was wildly exaggerated and absurd. And people who are spending all of their time worrying about how do we allocate resources within ourselves? Is it fair? And then it turns out there's an existential threat at your doorstep. And when the existential threat at your doorstep materializes, it turns out

It turns out that all the people who are protesting in the streets and all the people they were protesting against are in the same unit in the army. And you see a bunch of people who are secular in Israel and a bunch of people who are Dati, meaning religious in Israel, who five minutes ago were sort of over at each other's throats over things like judicial reform. So they're like, guys, we have bigger priorities right now. It turns out that there's there's something that is much, much worse. And so you've seen a transformation of the body politic.

in Israel. But I mean, first of all, the far left in Israel no longer exists as a functioning political entity. It just doesn't. It's not like there was a time when I was growing up, the Labor Party in Israel was the actual governing party in Israel in half of elections before Menachem Begin. The Labor Party was the only party in Israel that had ever governed. And now if you were to allocate sort of on the political spectrum in Israel where things stand of the 120 seats in Knesset, a minimum of 80 of them would have to be characterized as center to right.

There is no functioning left in Israel anymore because the left that had been sort of flagellating itself over the evils of Israel being Israel. Well, it turns out no matter what we do, people still want to murder us. I mean, one of the things that happened on October 7th was that the attack happened in the Gaza envelope. The Gaza envelope for people who don't know Israel and don't know the geography, it's like they attacked San Francisco. That area is the most left-wing area in the state of Israel. It is not an area that's in territorial dispute. It was not won in the Six-Day War.

It is not in the West Bank. It is not a settlement. The areas that were attacked have been an integral part of the state of Israel since 1947, 1948 and long before that. And when those areas were attacked, those areas voted like 80 percent for Meretz, which is the most left wing party in Israel. Many of the people who were murdered were peace activists who are attempting to bring people from Gaza to work in Israel. And the people who they brought in were giving sometimes information to Hamas as to

as to which houses were being populated by whom. Wasn't that what happened? That's how they got the floor plans and everything? A lot of them actually knew they worked there, right? Yes, they saw, they had on the bodies of the Hamas terrorists who were killed coming in, they actually had plans house to house with lists of members of families, in some cases, who were living in those houses. That can only be gathered by people who obviously were on the ground right there. And so for Israelis, who many of whom had been saying, well, you know, really this is about...

the treatment of the Palestinians or what can we do to facilitate better treatment for the Palestinians? The people who were murdered were exactly the people who were asking those questions. And so the reaction of Israelis left, right and center was it turns out that maybe this is not about a territorial dispute. Maybe this is about something much deeper and much more malevolent. I think we've seen that now for sure across the board. So you spent a lot of time with victims of October 7th. What's that been like for you? Oh, yeah.

In the beginning, I didn't necessarily interview children. I met one girl, Emily Hand, who was a hostage. She was probably the first child that I met. This was closer to the beginning, right after she got released. And again, I think because I heard my grandparents' stories and my grandma was 13 when she was taken to Auschwitz, I think meeting the kids really hit me in a different way because a lot of them, I interviewed kids from 11 to 17.

And their stories and looking them in the eye, sharing their stories with me. You know, one time I broke down and...

and cried when I was with one of them. The other times, I felt like I really had to stay strong. And then when I got back to my hotel after filming that day, I think I just, like, all my emotions came out. Because you can't understand, like, not only the trauma that they dealt with either when they were taken hostage or I interviewed a kid who saw Hamas kill both of their parents, his parents, right in front of him. And then he had to hide under his mother's dead body for a few hours so that Hamas would think that he was dead as well.

Can you imagine laying under your mother's dead body just to survive? And you hear that and you know the trauma that they dealt with then. But now the lifetime of trauma that these kids are going to have to deal with. They're never going to be the same, ever. Now this kid is missing both of his parents. Another kid was a hostage for 54 days and his father is still a hostage.

I mean, it's, it's, it's, you can't even understand what these families are going through and these kids are going through. Um, a lot of the, the women that I interviewed, you know, the, the sexual abuse that they, they endured or the mental abuse that they endured. I've become friends with a lot of them now. And I feel like they're all my family, you know? So it's, it's,

It's hit me a lot, very, very hard. I think the kids is the one that hit me the most. But I think the more I meet these people, the more it makes me want to fight harder because I know what they've been through and I know what they're going to continue to go through. And I know that it's... I feel it's my absolute responsibility to make sure their stories are told and shared with the world. And I've posted just small clips on my social media already and they already have like...

Almost 20 million views across platforms of just their small clips and the full length documentary is coming out in December. And I think that, again, it doesn't matter what anyone thinks of the conflict necessarily or what your opinions are. When you hear from these kids and you hear their personal stories, I think all of that goes away and you really, really feel for what happened to them.

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So, you know, I think one of the things that's happened in the media is they've attempted a sort of moral equivalence, obviously, between October 7th and then the response by Israel to October 7th. So it's a specious argument. It's ridiculous on its face. Israel has been

desperately attempting to protect civilian populations. If they'd wanted to eviscerate the civilian population of the Gaza Strip, they certainly have the military wherewithal to do so. They have not. There have actually been more births in Gaza since the beginning of the war than there have been deaths in warfare in Gaza on the Palestinian side since the beginning of the war. So it's an awfully stupid way to go about doing a genocide if that's what you're seeking to do. And they just sent out the polio vaccines, right? Right. They're sending 2,500 calories per person per day into the Gaza Strip. A lot of that's being hijacked by Hamas or stolen

by the UNRWA before it was outlawed by Israel. But the reality on the ground is ridiculous. I mean, the situation that you mentioned, where you have a child hiding under the body of a dead parent in order to survive, the reason that that would never be an issue in Gaza is because Israel is not attempting to kill children.

Israel is attempting to preserve life and kill terrorists. It's not quite the same thing. I heard a story last night about a group of IDF soldiers that went, they were in Gaza, and they went into an area, I'm not sure exactly what building, and a kid was booby-trapped with a bomb, a detonator. And they had a kid there with a detonator. And I think it was like 10 maybe IDF soldiers that were right there. And they all made the decision to not kill the kid, of course. And then six of them died. And

and four of them were saved because of this, what happened, because they said, we're not going to kill a kid.

So it's... I mean, I've seen the tapes from... If you ever go to... If ever our viewers have a chance to go to visit an Air Force base in Israel, they have footage and they will show you the footage of how they go about doing a drone strike on terrorists. And much of that footage is them deciding not to do a drone strike. They have to go through four layers of legal scrutiny before they green light a drone strike, which takes like an additional 45 seconds to a minute just to go through those clearances to actually perform the drone strike. That's...

That's how meticulous Israel is attempting to be legally. Now, it's a war. It doesn't mean that all rules are always followed. It doesn't mean that there aren't atrocities. Wars happen, and wars are awful. Wars are terrible. That's something I feel like people keep forgetting about this war. If you look at the history of wars...

It's not even comparable. I mean, Israel has the single best civilian to terrorist kill ratio in the history of urban warfare, and it isn't particularly close. The civilian to terrorist... Israel, for every civilian who's tragically killed, Israel kills about a terrorist. It's almost a one-to-one ratio at this point by the data that's being provided by the IDF. And even by the data that Hamas is providing, it's like 1.6 to 1. Those sorts of ratios are...

unheard of in urban warfare. When the United States is engaged in urban warfare in the past, you're talking about kill ratios of four or five to one in terms of civilians and terrorists because terrorists legitimately hide among civilians in order to avoid Western powers killing them. And so if any Western power has to

I mean, you can see this in Black Hawk Down. You can see this. Like, terrorists routinely hide behind civilians because they understand that the Western way of war is to try to avoid civilian casualties as much as possible since World War II. Meanwhile, they're going to exploit that as a vulnerability. So that's why the moral equivalence is just insane. I mean, last time I was in Israel, which was back during the summer, the –

I was sitting at Mincha, which is the Jewish afternoon service, and the person sitting next to me was a young soldier, a 20-year-old guy, who had been in Gaza. They were going house to house, trying to avoid civilian casualties, and his unit had been hit by an IED that was in a building, and the entire building came down on his unit. He was one of the few survivors. He was in a coma for two months. He had lost both legs. He had lost one arm, and he lost a couple of fingers. Wow.

on his other hand. And he, you know, it was a lawsuit. And he was like, the reason that they were in there on the ground in the first place is to attempt to avoid civilian casualties. If this had been World War II, then total air power would have been the obvious response to 10-7. I mean, and so the fact that, again, Israel's been performing, and the proof is in the pudding, meaning that when Israel performs,

some of the most targeted operations in human history against terrorists, the level of criticism is precisely the same. So forget about what's going on in Gaza when Israel does this unbelievable beeper operation in Lebanon where they literally use the supply chain. They've done so many amazing, I mean, the people that they've taken out this year has not only helped Israel, it's helped their U.S.-wanted terrorists. I mean, I'm not saying

And the Lebanese people. I mean, the Lebanese people have been living in a hellscape since the PLO came into the country in the late 1970s, early 1980s, and proceeded to help destroy the country. And then Hezbollah with Iran came in as well. And that country has been a sectarian hellhole for the last couple of decades, minimum, more like since the late 1970s, early 1980s. And because of what Israel is doing right now, it's possible that there may be an actual –

possibility of a real government being established in Lebanon, you would hope, for the first time in decades. But when Israel did the Beeper operation, again, the single greatest anti-terror operation in the history of humanity, where they used the actual supply chain of Hezbollah in order to target Hezbollah terrorists, they literally used only devices that Hezbollah was handing out to its fellow terrorists to get explosives in the Beepers. And then they blew up the Beepers and they hit

one civilian, I believe there was one child who was killed because it was a kid of a terrorist who was carrying the beeper when it went off. And the level of response by the people who hate Israel was exactly the same as if Israel had deliberately bombed civilians. Because it's not about the killing of civilians or the harming of civilians for people who hate Israel.

Anytime Israel flexes muscle, anytime Israel continues to not die, that would be the problem they seem to have. Of course. They use any excuse to criticize Israel, any excuse whatsoever. That's why I know I have to do everything I can to keep standing for Israel in every way, shape, and form. And that's why I continue to go back and continue to share the real stories and share what's actually happening on the grounds. And I also try to humanize the IDF. I think that's another thing that the world has...

dehumanize the IDF completely. And I think sharing personal stories like you just shared and like I just shared are so important for people to hear, like, actually the morality of the IDF as well. So, you know, given the fact that you are a dancer, which means that, you know, that actually takes practice and you have to keep doing it and all that. Have you been able to keep up your lifestyle during this year? It's been the craziest year of my life, I have to say. I think I've barely been home. Florida is my home.

my home and I have a place in LA and I feel like I'm like just barely in either place. But this is the most important thing that I could ever do in my life. And I think any Jew specifically that is not standing up right now in their own ways, you don't have to be on social media like me and be as outspoken as I am on social media. But this is the craziest time for Jews since the Holocaust, right?

back then, and I keep reiterating this, it didn't matter how famous you were, how successful you were during the Holocaust. If you were Jewish, that was it for you. Didn't matter. Nowadays, that's different. And we need to make sure that we all speak up and do something in our own ways, because this is what our ancestors couldn't have done or weren't able to do back then. So for me, if I have the opportunity to use my platforms,

to combat anti-Semitism, to combat all forms of hate, to debunk the crazy propaganda that's going out there. If I have the opportunity to speak around the world and make a difference, I have to do it. I have to do it. So it's been, I'm always tired, for sure, just

like constantly tired. But I think what, when I meet these, it's all my trips to Israel every single time. It inspires me more and more to keep going and to keep speaking up. And the more people that I meet also online, it could be a scary, terrible place. I know you understand that. And the crazy messages I receive are crazy. But the messages that I also receive from people around the world saying like,

I was ready to give up and then I saw your post and you inspired me or I was ashamed to be Jewish. I didn't want to wear my Megin David. And then I see all of your necklaces all the time and how prideful you are. And you've inspired me not to put my necklace back on. So it comes with also a lot of love and support. I'll be on the street and somebody will come up to me and just say, thank you for what you're doing. So all of that keeps me going and makes me want to go even harder and speak up even more. I think one of the big differences, obviously, also between now and the pre-Holocaust era

is that there are so many people in the West who really, really side with Israel and who really, really understand the nature of the conflict. That's particularly true in the United States. There's certainly a lot of people in Europe, obviously we're friends with many of them, people like Douglas Murray,

who totally understand it. But in the United States, the United States is a wildly philo-Semitic country. This country is just fantastic. It is a fantastic country. I mean, there are pockets of terrible people on college campuses, particularly, which incentivize this behavior. But the number of people in this country who truly love Jews, who truly also love Israel, and who see the civilizational conflict that's at play here, it's an amazing, amazing thing. I was...

during this last election cycle, I went around with a bunch of different Senate candidates and I campaigned with them. One of the people who I went with was Bernie Moreno, who is the new Senator, thank God, from Ohio. He's gonna be an excellent Senator. So Senator Moreno and I were up in Northern Ohio in a town of maybe 2,000 people, very small town, very Republican town, very red town. And this town had no Jews.

None. Because you're in northern Ohio. I mean, for those who don't know much about Judaism, if you have any sort of practice of Judaism, that you'll find Jews individually in every walk of life, just like you would any other ethnicity. But if you're talking about people who are observant Jews, observant Jews to a certain level require an infrastructure. You have to have Jewish schools and Jewish restaurants and kosher restaurants and a shul and a synagogue and all this kind of stuff. So up in northern Ohio, nothing like that. So

It's this little town, 2,000 people. And we do a big dinner event. And 1,000 of the 2,000 people show up. And so I give a speech. I'm about to leave. I have to make a plane. And one of the people from the town gets up and says, we have a present for you. So this person takes out a giant Israeli flag and says, after lunch,

after October 7th, one of the members of our town was so upset and disturbed and thought it was so necessary that he took, he went out and he bought this giant Israeli flag. He stuck it on the back of his Ford F-150 and he was just driving around this all non-Jewish town with this giant Israeli flag with Ford F-150. And everybody in the town was so moved by that and in such solidarity with Israel and the Jews that we all wanted to sign this. So we spent the last year signing this flag. Here is a flag signed by hundreds of Christians.

in Northern Ohio who love Jews, love Israel, and understand the civilizational battle that we're in right now. That's this country. This country is unbelievable. That's beautiful. I also did a rally called Christians for Israel in San Diego. And it was so beautiful. There were pastors, uh,

giving sermons. I mean, the way they were speaking about Israel and their love for Israel and how they're standing by Jews no matter what. And the crowd was just so diverse and so beautiful. And there was actually a counter-protest, of course, right across from us. And everyone that got on stage to speak, they would say, thank you to the protest. Thank

thank you guys for being here. Thank you for so much. Like we just kept, kept, you know, spreading love and kept going on. But to see the allies come together, I think has been so beautiful. And I also like, I don't know if you know, Loai al-Sharif, he's a Muslim peace activist. He's incredible. The way he speaks about Israel. There's another one, Loai, who's from Yemen. And he was literally grew up to hate Jews, of course. And he went to Israel for his first time. And then

his whole perspective changed and he now stands for Israel and stands up for Jews and

And there's a lot of amazing people who have also come out and have showed their pride for Israel and standing for Israel, not just the Jews, which is amazing. So you have your new project that is coming out in which you interview all of these kids from October 7th. That's coming out in December. And then obviously you also have a docuseries on the Holocaust that you've talked about, How to Never Forget and We Can Dance Again, which of course was this very widely seen dance film with Nova Festival Survivor. So what's...

What's next in terms of what you're producing next? What kind of content are you hoping to put out there? You know, for me, I think I've tried to share the same message in different ways. I feel like that's been my goal since the 7th is to continue to share the same message just in different ways. And as we know, social media, everyone's algorithm is different.

A video can land on this page and not land on this person's page. And so for me, it's been important to do these unique ways of sharing the message. That's why the Nova dance video specifically was kind of a crazy idea. Everyone thought you're going to do a dance video at the Nova site with Nova survivors, a dance video. Like, how could you think to do that? And I knew that people went to the Nova festival to dance. And I got together a bunch of the survivors and I asked them if they'd be comfortable with this. The dance group that is in my video, they lost three of their members at Nova.

And they dedicated a whole dance piece to Nova. So everything came together. The person that designed my outfit is really everyone that had also friends that were lost in Nova. So every single person involved in that video had a real attachment to what happened there. And to see the survivors with me at the end of the video, holding my hand, walking powerfully, a

Moran, Steli, and I was actually a hostage for 54 days. She was taken from Nova. She's in my video with me and I love her so much. But to see her, she told me that she showed right behind us of where we did the video was where she had to run to escape, where she tried to escape. So to have her be there after she dealt with everything

everything that she dealt with to see her standing strong and doing a dancing again. You know, in that video, when you first watch a video, you think it's like a music video. So it attracted a different audience from people who may not care about the conflict or want to see me speak about this again. They thought they were watching a dance video. And then all of a sudden, halfway through, you're hit with the reality of what happened at Nova. And again, the children of October 7th, why I think this is so important is I think really hearing from these kids is going to...

impact people in a really different way. I'm going to Israel, like I said, November 30th, and we're going to do like a small premiere there with all the families, with President Herzog and make it really special because this is really about the kids and their families. And like I said, I think it's going to really impact people in a big way. I'm going back to Israel in January to film a movie. So I just have a lot

of amazing things going on. So the movie that I'm filming in January, I can't say too much about yet, but I also just filmed one that's coming out in April called Mob Cops, where I play a detective's wife. So that one has nothing to do with Israel, but that one's really cool. I can't wait for that one to come out. And I'm also doing another one called The Mench with Jonah Platt. I'm like,

So a lot of really exciting things going on. But my number one priority is combating anti-Semitism, standing for Israel and trying to make a real difference in this crazy world. So that's that's my dream. Well, Montana, thanks for what you've been doing over the course of the past year. Thanks for stopping by. It's wonderful to see you. Thank you so much. You're the best. The Ben Shapiro Sunday special is produced by Savannah Morris and Matt Kemp. Associate producers are Jake Pollack and John Crick.

Editing is by Olivia Stewart. Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina. Camera and lighting is by Zach Ginta. Hair, makeup, and wardrobe by Fabiola Cristina. Title graphics are by Cynthia Angulo. Executive assistant, Kelly Carvalho. Executive in charge of production is David Wormis. Executive producer, Justin Siegel. Executive producer, Jeremy Boring. The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday special is a Daily Wire production. Copyright Daily Wire 2024.

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