Published: 10 June 2025
Last updated: 11 June 2025
American-Israeli technology entrepreneur and Israel advocate Hillel Fuld has been denied a visa to Australia on the grounds that he might incite hatred.
Fuld was scheduled to visit Australia in mid-June on a fundraising visit for Magen David Adom, the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross. He was due to speak to Magen David Adom fundraisers in Sydney and Melbourne, and to additional events at schools and synagogues.
The Department of Home Affairs wrote to him on Friday cancelling his visa on the grounds that he might use the platform to incite hatred “against particular segments of the community, namely the Islamic population”.
Fuld’s first claim to fame is as a technology business advisor, who provides marketing tips for growing a business or personal brands. But in the aftermath of the Hamas attacks on October 7, Fuld shut down his multi-million-dollar tech consulting business to focus on pro-Israel advocacy.
Comments10
Kim Lester7 July at 12:31 am
Where should governments draw the line on visas?
It sounds about right to me in this case based on this articles information.
However my greatest racist concern in Australia today is the hate generated by some Australian based Imans. I am glad some are being prosecuted and I hope this continues. Australian Muslims and Jewish people deserve to be protected from home grown hate as well as from hateful foreigners applying for visas.
Anon13 June at 07:16 am
Rachel, Much of what he (and you) say sounds awful because it is awful. Gazans did not vote to attack on 7/10. There are no free and fair elections in Gaza. Even if every Gazan child had been brainwashed to hate (and many who have lost family in this war have good reasons to feel so) none deserve to die. If anyone believes otherwise, they have lost their humanity.
Rachel Sussman12 June at 10:28 am
One may or may not agree or like Fuld’s words but there are two quedtions to ponder:
First, is he ‘wrong’?
As it is, much of what he says awful as it sounds, is sadly mostly true…
The people of Gaza are not just ‘innocent’. Indeed, like the Germans they elected Hamas, allowed it to grow, and over 70% still agree with 7/10 and support Hamas… Truth is that many civilians have participated in one way or another in the 7/10 atrocities. It is not a lie, it is a sad truth…
Palestinian kids are innocent in that they are brainwashed from their cradle, nevertheless, sad as it is, they are often used to commit acts of terror such as throw stones, grenades, even blow themselves up… and believe me nothing can be more confronting or disturbing than to be a victim to such… so yes it sounds horrible, yet it is also true (some returning hostages painfuly recounted their encounter with some of Gaza’s children)….
Islamophobia is not ridiculous. Islamophobia is not fear of Islam and Muslims as such, it is a fear or resistance to extreme Jihadist Islam, and yes we should be Islamophobic in this regard, and if we are not, we will pay the price…
As for people who are calling for intifada, they are calling for the murder of the infidel, it is a call for ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the non- believers ( non Muslims)… anyone calling for the intentional killing and eradication of another should be imprisoned…
So I suggest that it is time to stop being righteous and to start calling a spade a spade…
As for his denials of atrocities, I wonder why the article writer accepts as truth reports that comes through CNN, BBC and the likes, who are based on reports from Hamas and Al Jaseera etc but deny reports from the IDF or Israel?
When one reports ‘massacred’ at aid distribution centres should one not realize that Hamas does its best to sabotage the distribution? Should one not question what has Israel got to gain from such massacre but damage its own initiative in which it invested 7million shekels and more?
Like Fuld’s I also hold such ‘atrocities’ with a big question mark..,
Likewise with other so called ‘documented atrocities’ that are denied by Israel… let us remembet that when atrocities of any kind are commited ( such as the issue of abuse in prison) soldiers are arrested and taken to court, or are dismissed ( like the officers who were responsible for the shooting of the kitchen aid workers)…
So I dont think there is anything menacing in Fuld’s denials…
As for the horrid claimed incident with the children, I believe it is still under investigation and while it is clearly a tragic incident, one must also remember that these poor children were in a war zone, in an area that was called to be evacuated, and left alone…. It does not make the tragedy any better, but it implied that one should not be quick to point the finger and blame the IDF and Israel
of ‘atrocoty’….
The one statement of Fuld’s I disagree with is the denial of the existence of Jewish terror, sadly, this too exists…
But second, one must also ask – whether one agrees with Fuld’s views or not, he never calls for ‘intifada’ against Muslims or Palestinians, or God forbid for their murder, or for commiting any atrocity against them, nor does he call for hate, he simply expresses his view and yet he was refused visa not for ‘hate speech’ but for political view… this is not excusable and he certainly does not pose danger to the safety of any Australian as such…
Allowing this seems to me that the visa refusal is purely a political Labor disgraceful stunt…