Magen David Adom speaker’s visa cancelled
American-Israeli Hillel Fuld was preparing for this week’s visit to Australia, where he was to speak at Magen David Adom events in Sydney and Melbourne, but the Australian government cancelled his visa.
Hillel Fuld
On Friday, organisers heard from the Department of Home Affairs that the visa, granted on March 10, had been cancelled.
The cancellation details that the visa holder has posted on social media and has made statements denying documented atrocities and Islamophobia rhetoric, which has been received by members of the Australian community as inflammatory and concerning. The visa holder has the potential to use speaking events and other platforms while in Australia to continue making inflammatory statements which have the potential to incite discord. I consider there is a risk that those views will be adopted by members of the community and potentially increase the level of hatred against particular segments of the community, namely the Islamic population.
A member of the Department told J-Wire: “The decision was not the minister’s but was based on our research.”
On March 1, 2024, Fuld posted on Instagram: There was no massacre of Palestinians in Gaza today. You’ll be hearing that there was. It’s propaganda. Palestinians trampled each other as they fought for the aid that the IDF sent in knowing that Hamas was going to steal it like they have stolen all aid. Hundreds of Palestinians were trampled to death and many others injured. In parallel, a Palestinian mob tried to attack IDF forces who proceeded to shoot warning shots in the air and when the mob didn’t stop, the IDF fired at their legs. As I said, no massacre in Gaza. When the propaganda starts populating your feeds, just know that it is 100% false. Don’t believe the lies that are being fed to the media directly from Hamas.’
On 6 January 2025, Mr FULD posted on X: “According to all available data, 10% to 15% of the 1.8 billion Muslims in the world are radicalized. That’s hundreds of millions of people. So to call the fear of Islam, Islamophobia, when phobia is an irrational fear of something, is ridiculous. When every single terrorist attack committed by a Muslim is accompanied by a yell of Allah Akbar, the fear of Islam is very rational.
There was never an Arab Palestinian state, and Palestine was Israel. The word Palestinian was then hijacked (Yea, I carefully chose that word.) by Yasser Arafat and applied to the Arabs who came from Jordan and Egypt. There was never an Arab Palestinian country or an Arab Palestinian nation.
Differentiating between Gazans and Hamas is at best inaccurate, at worst dishonest.
The Gazans elected Hamas, and a vast majority of them support October 7. At the very least, they are comparable to the Germans in Nazi Germany, and should be treated as. No one debated the legitimacy of World War II by saying that there were innocent Germans in Germany. Evil needs to be uprooted completely and totally with no mercy.
Not only has there never been an Arab Palestinian state, but here’s a secret, there never will be one either.”
In the document rescinding the visa, the department stated: “The visa holder has published other similar posts on social media and has made statements
denying documented atrocities and Islamophobia rhetoric which has been received by members of the Australian community as inflammatory and concerning. I consider that segments of the Australian community would be concerned about the visa holder’s denial of mainstream media reporting of the Palestinian killings and the inflammatory comments made by the visa holder in multiple social media posts.”
Newly-elected Liberal MP Tim Wilson has written to Tony Burke, the Minister for Home Affairs asking, “should differences of political opinion become the grounds of denying visas, it sets a worrying and dangerous precedent for the future of our democracy.”
He added: “It seems denying him a visa is less to do with the substance of his content, and more to do with the cause he advocates for.”
Tony Ziegler, president of the Australian Friends of Magen David Adom, told J-Wire: “We are still proceeding with the function on Monday 16 June, livestreaming Hillel from Israel. We are making it a community solidarity event in support of Magen David Adom. It will be free of charge to attend, and people can make donations if they wish to https://events.humanitix.com/honouring-mda-s-lifesaving-heroes-an-evening-with-hillel-fuld/tickets
Hillel Fuld’s brother Ari was murdered by terrorists in Israel.
