Australia blocks visit by Israel activist Hillel Fuld, causing outrage
Scheduled to speak at events to raise money for Magen David Adom, Fuld had his visa rescinded as he was accused of being a ‘merchant of Zionist hate speech’
Zev Stub is the Times of Israel's Diaspora Affairs correspondent.
Pro-Israel activist and influencer Hillel Fuld has been barred from entering Australia because his presence would constitute a risk to “the health, safety or good order” of the country, according to Australia’s Department of Home Affairs.
Fuld, a citizen of both Israel and the United States, was due to speak at events for Magen David Adom in Sydney and Melbourne to raise money for the medical organization’s new facility in Lehavim in southern Israel. His visit was canceled due to fears he would use the platform to incite hatred “against particular segments of the community, namely the Islamic population,” according to the letter sent to him Friday by the Department of Home Affairs.
The decision has sparked outrage from Jewish communities in Australia and worldwide.
When contacted by The Times of Israel, the Department of Home Affairs said it could not comment on individual cases.
Fuld told The Times of Israel that he had received his travel visa for the trip months ago without any problems. “But on Thursday, someone brought to my attention a post on X calling for people to contact the immigration office to get me blocked from entering the country. Sure enough, the next morning, I got an email from them telling me I wouldn’t be allowed to come.”
The coordinated social media campaign by pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel activists called Fuld “a well-known merchant of Zionist hate speech,” saying he has “a well-documented history of spreading hate speech, Islamophobia, and dangerous misinformation.” It included detailed information on how to file a complaint with authorities.
Fuld said the decision is drawing diplomatic blowback, with United States Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan, and others taking up the case.
In a letter to Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, Huckabee said Fuld “poses no threat to the people of Australia by his actions or words.”
“I fully respect the decision to grant the visa is solely in your hands and you have a sovereign right to make the decision to deny entry to someone you consider a threat to national security, [but] I do not feel Mr. Fuld poses any threat of any kind.” Huckabee wrote.
Meanwhile, opposition leaders in Australia called on Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke to explain the cancellation.
“If there is a new political precedent in the standard for issuing entry visas to Australia, the Australian people should be informed as soon as possible,” shadow home affairs minister Andrew Hastie said in a statement Sunday.
It’s not the first time a visa has been denied to an Israeli on political grounds, however. Last November, former justice minister Ayelet Shaked was barred from entering Australia for similar reasons when she was slated to address a conference organized by the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council. US conservative political commentator Candace Owens was also banned from entering the country last year.
Fuld, a long-time influencer in Israel’s high-tech scene, began advocating for Israel full-time after Hamas launched its war against Israel on October 7, 2023. His social media reach in the Jewish world is considerable, with 177,000 followers on X, 156,000 followers on Facebook, 87,000 followers on Instagram, 16,800 subscribers to his YouTube channel, and 3,300 followers on TikTok.
He is also known for being the brother of Ari Fuld, an activist and social media personality who was stabbed to death by a 17-year-old terrorist in the parking lot of a shopping mall at the Gush Etzion Junction in 2018. Ari’s death was mourned by tens of thousands around the world at the time, and he is still memorialized by different funds and causes in his name.
In the letter canceling his visa, the Home Affairs Ministry cited several of Fuld’s posts that they said “denied documented atrocities and Islamophobia rhetoric, which has been received by members of the Australian community as inflammatory and concerning.”
“Based on this information, I consider there is sufficient reason to conclude that the visa holder’s use of various online platforms to promote his controversial views and ideologies may lead to fostering division in the community,” the letter said.
In one example cited, the Home Affairs Ministry said Fuld had contradicted “reports made by many reliable news sources that at least 112 Palestinians had been killed and more than 750 wounded after Israeli troops opened fire” on people waiting for aid near Gaza City on March 1, 2024.
Fuld had called the reports “propaganda” and “fabricated” in a lengthy post on Instagram, writing: “There was no massacre of Palestinians in Gaza today.”
An IDF probe into the incident eventually determined that the vast majority of civilian casualties in the incident were the result of thousands of people swarming the aid trucks, creating a stampede and causing people to get run over.
Friends of Magen David Adom attacked the ruling on Fuld’s visa. “We absolutely reject this,” it said in a statement. Hillel has spoken to large audiences across North America, Europe and Asia with no incident.”
“The decision “is difficult to reconcile with the actual purpose of his visit, which is to speak about entrepreneurship and help raise money for emergency medical services in Israel that treat everyone, regardless of faith or background,” Zionist Federation of Australia President Jeremy Leibler added. He said his organization was in direct contact with the government regarding the decision.
Fuld is now expected to address the fundraiser event by video conferencing instead of in person, Fuld noted.
The decision is a slap in the face for Australia’s 120,000-strong Jewish community, which has been among the hardest hit by antisemitism in the world since October 7, 2023. The country experienced more than 2,000 anti-Jewish incidents between October 2023 and September 2024, more than quadruple the number from the year before Hamas’s October 7, 2023, assault that sparked the Gaza war, according to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ).
In recent months, Jews there have experienced synagogues, schools, and homes firebombed, two nurses threatening to kill Jewish patients in their hospital, and the discovery of a trailer filled with explosives said to be intended for a mass-casualty event at a Sydney synagogue.
Residents have been overwhelmingly frustrated by what they say is the failure of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his government to rein in skyrocketing antisemitism, but were hopeful that after his Labor Party’s reelection last month, he would do more to protect the Jewish community in his second term. While the party now understands that antisemitism is a significant domestic issue, and has begun to make stronger efforts to fight it, Fuld’s snub is a sign that relations may be unlikely to improve shortly.
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