Pro-Israel influencer Hillel Fuld was getting a haircut last Friday when he received a shocking email from the Australian government. It said his visa had been revoked and he was barred from the country for three years, in part because his social media posts allegedly included “Islamophobia rhetoric.”
One example it cited was a Jan. 6, 2025 post in which Fuld wrote: “When every single terrorist attack committed by a Muslim is accompanied by a yell of Allahu Akbar, the fear of Islam is very rational.”
“I was shaking, like physically shaking. I had to read this email five times,” Fuld told JNS. “I’m like, there is no way that the Australian government is banning some random dude for writing his opinion on Israel. There are no other words to describe it other than insane.”
Fuld, whose posts largely focus on Israel advocacy, was to speak at Magen David Adom Australia fundraising events in Melbourne on June 12 and Sydney on June 16. The talks, apolitical in nature, were to be about Israeli tech innovation. Now, he said, he will speak “virtually” via Zoom.
Home Affairs document
The ten-page document he received from Australia’s Department of Home Affairs, obtained by JNS, said the dual U.S.-Israeli citizen had also been refused a visa because he posed “a risk to the health, safety or good order of the Australian community” with particular concern for “the Islamic population.”
Home Affairs said his online commentary was “inflammatory and concerning.”
It’s “different level stuff, different level craziness,” said Fuld, who noted that he had applied for the visa on his American passport. “Once you ban an American citizen who says something you disagree with, any American that says something disagreeable could be banned,” he told JNS.
The government document said Fuld had “the potential” to use the visit to indulge in “inflammatory statements” that might “incite discord,” which in its view, could lead to hate crimes.
“I’m very careful with the things I put out there. I’m very careful that I’m accurate. I’m very careful that I don’t incite any sort of violence or any racism, Islamophobia,” Fuld, 46, told JNS.
“Nothing about my tweets is in any way inflammatory. Once in a blue moon, I share something that turns out not to be accurate, and I’m the first to pedal back and admit that I was wrong,” he added.
Home Affairs cited two of Fuld’s social media posts as grounds for their decision, including one from Jan. 6, 2025, that said Palestinians “want no Israel, they want dead Jews. They never wanted a state.”
In that post, Fuld went on to write that “Abbas, the head of the Palestinian national authority, is not a moderate” and “pays terrorists to kill Jews, including the terrorist who murdered my brother, and any chance to paint him as a moderate is dangerous and simply false.”
Fuld’s brother Ari Fuld was stabbed to death by a Palestinian terrorist at the Gush Etzion Junction on Sept. 16, 2018.
In his July 6 post, Fuld wrote: “Tragically, it is not safe to assume that all children in Gaza are innocent. Children are taught from age zero that murdering a Jew is the highest accomplishment in life, and so often times, Arab terror (including the murderer of my brother), is carried out by children. The same goes for women and ‘journalists’ in Gaza.”
Full-time advocate
Prior to Oct. 7, 2023, Fuld was a high-tech consultant and is now a full-time pro-Israel advocate with a social media reach that includes 177,000 followers on X, 156,000 followers on Facebook, 87,000 followers on Instagram and some 17,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel.
“So this is a deranged situation,” he said, because it’s “a question of freedom of speech, the question of allowing someone to have a pro-Israel opinion.”
Magen David Adom is Israel’s national emergency medical, disaster and ambulance service, and profits from the Australian fundraisers were earmarked to build a new MDA Station in Lehavim in southern Israel.
MDA Australia issued a statement June 8 on Instagram saying they “absolutely reject” the visa cancellation, and that “Hillel has spoken to large audiences across North America, Europe and Asia with no incident.”
Fuld said that the support he has received from the Australian Jewish community “has been very heartwarming.”
In Fuld’s defense
JNS obtained a copy of a strongly worded letter from U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee to the Interior Minister of Australia, explaining that Fuld posed no threat.
Other “formal diplomatic channels” are taking up his case, Fuld told JNS, including Israel’s foreign minister, a former U.N. ambassador and the Australian ambassador to Israel, in an attempt to reverse the three-year travel ban.
At least two Australian opposition politicians have also stepped up to demand an explanation from the Department of Home Affairs’ decision. The Honourable Andrew Hastie MP—the shadow minister for Home Affairs—wrote on X on June 8 that he had requested full details regarding the rejection of Fuld’s visa.
Tim Wilson of the Liberal Party took to X to say that Fuld’s language may be “unfortunate and unsavoury,” but he could not identify anything that would be considered unlawful if an Australian said it. He concluded this was about “differences of political opinion,” causing a “worrying and dangerous precedent for the future of our democracy.”
Hillel Neuer, executive director of U.N. Watch, noted on X how Australia would not let in someone with pro-Israel views, they “welcomed pro-Hamas [United Nations Special Rapporteur] Francesca Albanese, who was condemned for her antisemitism” by countries as the US, Canada, Germany and others in the G7.
Since taking office in 2022, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has changed Australia’s long standing approach to Israel. His administration reversed the previous government’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, for example, signaling a move away from Australia’s historically pro-Israel position.
Under Albanese, Australia has adopted a more critical tone toward Israel in international fora. His government supported a U.N. General Assembly resolution in December that called on Israel to end what it described as its “unlawful presence” in the “Occupied Palestinian Territory,” including eastern Jerusalem. Previously, Australia had either opposed or abstained from resolutions containing such language.
The country saw more than 2,000 antisemitic incidents between October 2023 and September 2024, an increase of more than four times over the previous year, according to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, a cross-communal representative body.
In recent months, Jews in Australia have seen various institutions firebombed, including synagogues, schools and homes. Two nurses took to social media, boasting how they sought to kill Jewish patients at their hospital.
Following the Fuld decision, the Australian Jewish Association issued a travel advisory on June 8 to Jews around the world, dissuading them from visiting the country, lest they too be refused entry.
It said the Albanese government had “demonstrated increasing hostility toward the Jewish community and Israel, including the apparent targeting of Jewish visitors.”
The statement cited an example of a family who were not permitted to visit to attend their Holocaust survivor relative’s 100th birthday.
“We have to remember, you know, this is a dangerous precedent,” Fuld concluded. “We have to make sure that this is fought, because, again, this is not about this Australia trip. It’s about people being turned away for having the wrong opinions.”