Protestors gathered Tuesday at the University of Washington’s Red Square in opposition to a planned public appearance by Noa Cochva, Miss Israel 2021 and former IDF combat medic. Cochva did not appear, but she was interviewed that day on 570 KVI by talk radio host Ari Hoffman. During the interview, Hoffman addressed protestors directly: “Sorry guys, she’s not there.” “We were tricking them. It’s so fun to troll them,” added Cochva, and Hoffman agreed: “It really is.”
Cochva, who represented Israel at Miss Universe 2021, was named by The Jerusalem Post and the Jewish National Fund in September 2025 as one of 25 “most influential young people with a Zionist vision” in the United States. According to her public biography, she served approximately five months in the IDF reserves on the Gaza border following the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attacks in which approximately 1,200 people were killed in Israel.
She has since spoken on a U.S. advocacy tour sponsored by organizations including Friends of the IDF (the sole U.S.-authorized fundraiser for the Israeli military, which reported $282 million in revenue in 2023), StandWithUs (a pro-Israel campus advocacy group that trains students to counter BDS campaigns), and Hillel (the largest Jewish campus organization in the U.S). (1/4)
