JERUSALEM, Israel – Anti-Semitic statements have spread across social media, college campuses, and continents since shortly after October 7th, 2023, when Hamas invaded Israel, killing close to 1,200 people. One student’s journey during the time since October 7th transformed her from a pro-Palestine activist to a supporter and defender of Israel.
Taryn Thomas, a Stanford University student, told CBN News that her support for the Palestinian cause began before she was out of high school.
She recalled, “Way back in 2020 during the Black Lives Matter protests, I would see Palestinian flags at our protests, and I was very curious. I’m 16 years old, and I would ask our leaders like, ‘Why?’ And they would say, “Our liberation is bound to theirs. No one is free until Palestine is free.’ And so it felt like you needed to be a part of and support as a part of intersectionality.”
Thomas, by then on the campus at Stanford, became swept up in that support for the Palestinian cause in 2023.
“When October 7th happened, on my social media, my, like on Instagram in particular, blew up with just Palestinian flag after Palestinian flag. And I genuinely had thought that Palestine had gotten attacked by how much support I was seeing. Obviously I learned the truth…Within 13 days, by October 20th, at Stanford University, we had an encampment to stop the ‘genocide.'”
It seemed to Thomas that everyone pushed the pro-Palestinian agenda as the encampment on campus happened at “unprecedented speed.”
“There’s no time for mourning, and the (Israeli) families haven’t even finished naming all 1,200 of their dead,” she remembered. “So, and this is also a week before a single soldier even crossed into Gaza, that we were labeling a genocide. So we’re already knowing how the story was going to end before it even began.”
We asked whether she was involved in the protests and what happened that started to change her mind about them.
Thomas replied, “The movement became about ourselves, and it became very radicalized. At one of our protests, it got out of hand. They broke into the Stanford University President’s office, and they spray-painted very disgusting things such as ‘Death to America, Death to Israel, Pigs taste best when dead.’ And when I saw this graffiti, I looked for Gaza. Where was Palestine in any of those words? And I was very confused on what our mission was.”
As a result of the protests, authorities charged 12 students with felonies, while the university suspended other students.
Thomas noted, “And so, that made me take a step back and reflect on, like, at what point did the pro-Palestine movement become an anti-Israel one, an anti-American one?
Within a year, she received an invitation.
“I think, October 2024, I received an email from my now best friend inviting non-Jewish students to bear witness to the Nova Music Festival exhibit in Los Angeles,” she recalled.
Still “very pro-Palestine,” Thomas decided to visit the exhibit. “I mainly wanted to go see, like, the Zionist propaganda,” she told us. “And so, I went, and I didn’t find any. I found phones and half-read messages. And in that exhibit, it was just grotesque how Hamas brutally murdered people my age.”
While she was provoked by curiosity and questions, Thomas felt she had no one to ask.
“I took a step back. And then the people that I went to that exhibit with were invited to go to Israel. And so, I spent ten days in Israel, and I learned so much, and it was incredible,” she remembered.
Thomas added, “I didn’t realize, you know, for the over the two years I was protesting, I’d never spoken to an Israeli, you know. And on our fourth day there, we had a missile (that landed in Israel). And I just thought how ironic: I was, you know, calling for the divestment of these systems I’m now praying for to protect me!”
That happened in March, 2025. The CBN News crew met Thomas during her third trip here this year, with IsraelAmbassadors.com. Recently, they visited the Nova Music Festival site, where Hamas killed and kidnapped hundreds of Israelis and others.
“And to me, it was so impactful,” she said. “Again, I went to the exhibit, and I’ve talked a lot about the Nova Music Festival, but I hadn’t been there. And to see the names, the faces…They all look like people I knew. They look like, you know, my classmates, my peers, my – they could have been my own friends. It could have been me.”
Thomas believes that to truly change someone’s mind, it’s important to put aside politics and maintain a human connection. She feels her new Jewish friends did that.
“If you want people to change and have an advocate, we have to build off-ramps off of radicalization, so we don’t shame them into silence,” she asserted, “Because many people – some of my opinions were incorrect and wrong, and they still welcomed me with open arms.”
That helped her put together a message for young people in America.
“It’s so easy to bring our Western perspective and apply it to this Middle Eastern region,” she stated. ” And it’s so complicated. And so in the West, we think of things as black and white, and here it’s just so much gray.”
She continued, “So, I just say, just to slow down and listen to people’s stories and their perspectives, because oftentimes we can talk about facts and history and debates and things like that. But that’s not what changed my mind. It wasn’t a debate. It wasn’t an argument. It was instead listening to people’s perspectives and their stories.”
