You may have already seen the viral man-on-the-street interviews conducted by comedian and influencer Zach Sage Fox, who went to the West Bank to see for himself how much support there actually is for Hamas. While polling has already confirmed a majority of Palestinians support the terror group, it was the first time Western audiences have seen firsthand locals respond to spontaneous questions while they were going about their everyday business.
Fox had been in Israel creating content when he was offered the chance to enter the West Bank with a Muslim producer and cameraman. As a Jewish American, it was certainly risky, but the influencer was convinced he could pass as an Italian American.
"Israelis are literally not allowed into Palestine; they're not allowed into the West Bank. However, I'm not Israeli, I'm an American Jew, and it doesn't say ‘Jew’ on my passport. So, I was told, ‘As long as you don't say you're Jewish, you know, they're not going to kill you on the spot,’" Fox told Fox News Digital.
Fox got ready for the trip, not telling family or friends where he was going. His first interview was with a man described by his producer as “very smart and civil” who holds a Master’s degree and speaks English quite well. The two met at a coffee shop in Ramallah.
The man denied the atrocities of Oct. 7 and expressed his support for the terror group.
"I realized quickly, if this is someone being presented to me as one of the more educated people, I might be in for a real shock," Fox said—and he was.
Once he got on the streets, one interviewee after the next showed nothing but “massive love and support for Hamas.”
"I was specifically looking for younger people thinking, ‘OK, someone here is not going to support Hamas.’ And they all do," he said. "It really ranged from sympathy to actual love and admiration for Hamas…. I thought I would find at least some people who were not diehard Hamas supporters, and I couldn’t find one."
His experience took a turn for the worse rather quickly once he tried interviewing a woman whose hair was fully covered.
"This Palestinian man comes up, and he starts screaming in Arabic, and my translator and producer tells me he's very upset," Fox said.
Fox recalled the man yelling "something about modesty," and that females shouldn’t speak for all Palestinians. Fox attempted to ignore the man, but he only grew more agitated and started calling additional Palestinian men for support.
"They start screaming in Arabic, and I’m still just trying to be professional and go on and interview people. Eventually, my producer tells me he’s threatening to hurt us if we don’t delete the footage. I’ve never had anything like this happen in my entire career… never, no one threatened violence," Fox said.
"Then that violence turned into death threats very quickly," Fox added, noting that he initially pushed back and refused to delete the footage. "The Arabic started getting louder, more men started coming."
Fox said he’s probably "crazy," and wanted to continue to stand his ground, but pivoted when his Muslim cameraman said he was terrified for his life.
"Eventually I cave because my cameraman tells me they’re threatening to kill us… we deleted a bunch of the footage in front of him," he said.
"Then my producer and my cameraman grab my arm, we run to the car, and it was a pretty eye-opening experience," he continued. "We really bolted out of Palestine… luckily they didn’t chase us to the car." (Fox News Digital)
Some of the footage was eventually able to be recovered and every interview he conducted did make it onto the final “Wild West Bank” video.
Free Palestine? I went to see ‘Palestine’… and almost didn’t make it out alive.
— Zach Sage Fox (@zachsagefox) July 23, 2024
After asking questions on the streets of Ramallah for less than an hour, a group of Palestinian men threatened to kill us if we didn’t delete our footage. This is what we were able to recover…… pic.twitter.com/D2rzmE6HBb