Hasan Piker, an American pundit who has downplayed and defended Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 massacres in Israel and has called Orthodox Jews “inbred,” is planning to speak in the United Kingdom, where Jewish groups last week called for him to be denied a visa.
“The U.K. should not be a platform for individuals who spread hatred or legitimise extremism,” the Communal Security Trust (CST), British Jewry’s watchdog on antisemitism, told The Jewish Chronicle of London reported on Friday.
Piker is due to appear in London for a live podcast with news and opinion website UnHerd on June 5 and a talk at music and technology festival SXSW London on June 4.
Piker called Orthodox Jews “inbred” last year on Twitch, the video platform where he has over 3 million followers. He later said that’s a term he applies to all “supremacists.”
In April, Piker also stated he would “choose Hamas over Israel” during an appearance on a Pod Save America episode. “As a lesser-evil voter,” he said, “I’d choose Hamas every single time.”
Glorifying terrorist organizations, including Hamas, is illegal in the United Kingdom, which has arrested hundreds of people for this in recent months.
In 2024, the U.K. banned visas for four Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria, all of them farmers who have come under repeated attacks by Palestinians.
The U.K. Foreign Office called the four men—Moshe Sharvit, Yinon Levy, Zvi Bar Yosef and Ely Federman—“Extremist settlers” and accused them of violence against Arabs.
Last year Piker, who is of Turkish descent and is the nephew of Cenk Uygur, another far-left, anti-Israel pundit, also appeared to incite violence against what he called capitalists, saying: “let the streets soak in their f****ng red-capitalist blood.”
