The global intifada movement—aimed at dismantling the state of Israel—is experiencing its first significant public rift. This tension arises as a Palestinian-American activist, known for spearheading protests in New York City, has accused a Jewish American actor, who claims to support the movement, of sexual misconduct and exploiting a humanitarian crisis for personal gain.
On Friday, Nerdeen Kiswani aired a detailed critique on the X social media platform, targeting Jacob Berger. She condemned him as a “failed OnlyFans creator” who has reinvented himself as a “Palestine supporter.”
“You have a right to remain silent!” OnlyFans wrote, announcing Berger’s new offering. “Prepare for a barrel of laughs…”
Following October 7, 2023, Berger, a Columbia University alumnus, made a noticeable shift in his public persona. Not long after, he shared a video on Instagram, wearing a NASA t-shirt, where he spoke against the “genocide of the Palestinian people,” labeled Israel as an “apartheid state,” and concluded with the rallying cry, “Free Palestine!”
Later that month, without wearing a keffiyeh and donning a white New York Yankees cap, Berger participated in a gentle-paced protest in Washington, D.C. This demonstration, organized by Jewish Voice for Peace—with which Kiswani is affiliated—moved from Union Station to the U.S. Capitol grounds. Amid chants for a “Ceasefire now,” participants were photographed by protest enthusiasts who later shared the imagery on social media, marking the expanding global intifada movement.
The following month, Berger recorded a selfie video at another protest led by Kiswani on the Williamsburg Bridge, linking Brooklyn and Manhattan. Wearing a “Bronx Native” cap, he joined in the protest against Israel’s military response, chanting “Free, free Palestine” alongside other demonstrators.
Kiswani criticizes Berger for seeking attention in every situation. She claims, “He centers himself in everything,” even in conversations with Palestinians and during livestreams, focusing on his suffering, censorship, and his sacrifice of fame, all while exploiting a serious conflict for personal advantage.
Nerdeen Kiswani, co-founder and leader of Within Our Lifetime-United for Palestine (WOL), speaks at a demonstration near Columbia University on February 02, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images) (Photo by Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images)
All along, Berger has been blatant about his sexual content, posting videos with scantily-clad women from his first days of anti-Israel protesting. As he joined the post-Oct. 7 protests and befriended Kiswani, he still had fresh on his social media feed a video he’d posted of a woman in a bra and thong underwear, with the caption, “When she likes it rough.” In another video he had on his public feed, he squeezed a Black woman’s buttocks, visible under lace hose and thong underwear, with the caption, “When cops stop you for being thick.”
After joining the protests, he stayed on script with his sexual content, showing two busty women spilling out of their bras, cavorting with each other behind the caption: “When wifey won’t share her girlfriend with you.” He earned 52,666 likes.
By late November 2023, Berger wrapped a black-and-white checkered keffiyeh, the symbol of the global intifada, over his shoulders, under a Pittsburgh Pirates beanie and marched near Kiswani and a banner that read, “BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.” That post garnered 2.6 million views.
“Ten toes down for 🍉,” he wrote, using the watermelon emoji that’s become a symbol for Palestine, its red, black and green colors matching the colors of the Palestinian flag.
Days later, in a show of force against support for Israel, he marched to the Christmas tree lights at Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan with Kiswani, who gave her activist group the name “Within Our Lifetime,” seeking to claim Israel as the nation of “Palestine” within a generation. She established the group as an offshoot of the New York City chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, known for its virulent anti-semitism.
Over the years, Kiswani has chanted, “We want to see Israel fall within our lifetime,” telling protestors: “We need allies who are gonna help us achieve a victory, not allies who are gonna tell us to be nonviolent.” She has said, “No Zionists are welcome in our city,” and she has declared, “We don’t want two states. We want ‘48,” meaning the land in 1948 before Israel was created.
Her organization’s website now hosts a “rally toolkit,” with a “roadmap for how your organization or coalition can put on a successful rally and build the movement for Palestine from wherever you are.” It offers a “rally checklist,” with “chants, logistics, outreach, materials, assigned roles, security recommendations, follow up, playlist,” with three “Palestinian resistance songs.” The “donate” button currently doesn’t work.
Kiswani didn’t publicly challenge Berber over the next two-and-a-half years, as he embedded himself deeper in the anti-Israel protest movement with often-cringey content about chasing “Habibti,” or Arab women, and declaring, “Asian Women Are Thick Now♥️,”
“It’s a handful of videos out of hundreds,” Berger says, in his video response to the allegations against him. “I’m an entertainer, comedian and a streamer. I say funny things. Her trying to haram police my content and my live stream style is just insane and out of line.”
Kiswani now faces her own backlash. A self-described “Arab alphamale” supporter of Berger says, “Nerdeen is good at being a dictator,” “acting retarded,” running a “useless organization,” storming Grand Central Station “like idiots” and making Palestinians “look stupid.”
By August 2024, Berger journeyed to Egypt to raise funds for “orphans and single moms from Gaza,” displaced by the war.
Kiswani alleges: “He reportedly made videos with Palestinian children on a ‘field trip,’ asking people to donate for these ‘orphans’ without consent from their families. When they found out and asked him to take it down, he blocked them.”
Berger denies the charges and says: “But this is, unfortunately, a very ugly side of the humanitarian world that we, as people that work in this field, try to keep to ourselves, because it’s so messed up that if you know these kind of details, it could affect people’s trust in donating to Palestinian causes, period.”
“Jacob Berger’s the man…He’s a brilliant artist, brilliant human! Jacob, thank you for being here. Appreciate you.” – Former Democratic New York U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman introducing Berger at a rally
Meanwhile, he kept posting his racy videos. In September 2024, in Dearborn, Mich., at ArabCon, he filmed a skit promoting a dating app, Olive, throwing a keffiyeh over his shoulders as he chased attractive Arab women, with the caption, “How to find that perfect Habibti😍,” and asked the question, “Y’all wanna go free Palestine together?”
By October 2024, Berger moved to live in Cairo. Kiswani accuses him of “getting a free apartment, not paying for anything, and living comfortably while volunteers around him were actually working.” He denies the charges as “so laughable.”
The next month, Berger shared a supposed message from a follower: “As beautiful Muslim women, I feel we should give anti-zionist Jewish guys a shot. I feel like it isn’t Haram,” or Islamically illegal, “if he rides with Muslims”
By the end of the year, Berger posted a skit of himself hitting on a dark-haired woman in torn jeans, her midriff bare under a jean jacket, tube top and caption that read, “How to get a womans [sic] attention in an Egyptian club.”
Months later, in the spring of 2025, Kiswani flashed a wide smile and “V” for victory with her fingers, in a video with Berger from an anti-Israel protest, both draped in kefiyyehs.
Now, Kiswani says, “If you’ve felt uneasy about him, you’re not alone…This isn’t cancel culture. It’s protecting the movement from exploiters. If your solidarity is self-promotion, it’s actually extraction.”
A few months ago, in early May, wearing a Yankees cap, Berger stood somber-faced next to climate activist Greta Thunberg, promoting a “Freedom Flotilla” to “break this siege” in Gaza. In mid-June, he celebrated Iranian air strikes against Israel.
By mid-July, now aboard a new sailing of the “Freedom Flotilla,” he debated TV host Piers Morgan over the alleged “kidnapping” of Thurnberg by Israeli officials, who had detained and released her as she sailed off the shores of Israel.
Last week, as he returned from his own aborted mission of the “Freedom Flotilla,” with “GAZA” across his military green t-shirt and a kefiyyeh over his shoulders, activists lined a lobby in the arrivals lounge at JFK. International Airport, yelling, “Jacob! Jacob!” as he exchanged high-fives with them.
“Protests in the street are not enough,” he told a cameraman. “One day we will see Falasteen free, Inshallah,” invoking the Arabic term used by Muslims for “God willing.”
“Inshallah,” the cameraman responded.
Within days, Kiswani leveled her accusations against Berger as a grifter and sexual predator, and a detractor accused him of helping the cause of Zionism, or belief in the state of Israel, labeling him “a Zio in Kefiyeah [sic].”
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