Barred

Israel hate and antisemitism enters a new phase: locking out public speakers

In my daily work it is always interesting to meet and learn from other people in tech, wherever they are. Founders, investors, influencers, all of them uniquely contribute to the wave of innovation and cool opportunities that have taken us by storm over the past few decades. So in late 2019, I sat down for a coffee with Hillel Fuld, Israel’s pre-eminent tech blogger and connector. Appropriately we met in his ‘office’, coffeeshop Biga in the heart of start-up nation’s tech center in Tel Aviv. Our meeting was sandwiched in between Hillel meeting founders who were pitching their start-up ideas. By the way Biga is a great kosher place, across from the Kirya, Israel’s military HQ, which in turn is right across the road from what is now Hostages Square.

Fuld was of course everything you expected, talking at a super-fast pace, his phone ringing and beeping non-stop while singing the praises of Israel as the start-up nation. I recall him talking a lot about drones at the time, yes, it was six years ago, long before they became ubiquitous in wars we could not even have imagined back then.

There was also a darker side to him and those who follow Israel will know about the tragic murder by a terrorist of his brother Ari in 2018. Fuld has written and talked about this extensively and the devastating imprint it had on him. There are few people I know of who have shared their grief so publicly and in doing so have given access to the many painful stages of mourning and how they develop over time. For that alone he should receive all the recognition one can think of.

The late Ari Fuld was a noted pro-Israel influencer so his legacy no doubt contributed to Hillel’s decision to close his tech consulting business on October 7th and devote himself fulltime to advocate for and report on Israel. He even started a group that gets together online to discuss the latest and to find new ways to better tell Israel’s story and I tune into that from time to time.

His public persona reveals a warm, emotional and religious human with his heart on his sleeve, selflessly promoting, recommending and connecting others. It is personalities like him that make successful tech ecosystems. His many speaking engagements globally mix the personal with tech, religion and Middle East politics. Fuld embodies what I once described in a guest column for OurCrowd as being rooted in ancient history and tradition, but way ahead of most of us when it comes to seeing and building the future. They take a leap over the present so to speak. Listening to Fuld will enrich you, whether you agree with him or not.

Yet there are those that do indeed disagree to such an extent that over the weekend word got out that Australia had revoked his visa to give a speech as part of a fundraiser for David Magen Adom, Israel’s emergency ambulance service. Apparently the reason given was the risk Hillel posed to “the health, safety or good order” in Australia according to its Department of Home Affairs. Further digging tells us that Hillel’s presence would encourage hate against muslims, affect public order as well as spreading misinformation. Anyone even basically familiar with Fuld’s work and character will be both baffled and speechless when hearing of such a targeted attack on free speech in an open western democracy. There are a few things at play here, so let’s dive in.

First, the mechanics of it all. Hillel was given a visa without problem quite a while ago. No problem you would say, but activist pro-Hamas groups police the internet to see what is happening. When it was discovered that Hillel would speak in Sydney and Melbourne they activated their networks to ‘alert’ the right people to try and frustrate his entry to Australia. It seems increasingly easy to achieve this, especially with sympathetic officials in ‘progressive’ governments that are open, or possibly afraid of, activist pressure. This stands in stark contrast to the many peddlers of hate and antisemitism (UN rep Francesca Albanese comes to mind) who freely roam the world and often get a warm reception wherever they go.

Secondly, this transcends the situation in Australia, it is a global trend. Whenever I open my X feed there are reports on Jewish speakers being banned, pro-Israel events being rescheduled or cancelled or when they go ahead, being disrupted with noise, intimidation or worse. All of this is part of a deliberate and well organized attempt to isolate Israel, delegitimize it and push it to the fringes. By steadily barring Jewish and Israeli speakers while enabling and platforming Palestinians and pro-Hamas forces there is an incredible moral reversal taking place across Western democracies. And it is no longer confined to the streets as we know. Media, universities (this Dutch case is notable), local governments, mainstream politicians and national governments as Hillel discovered a few days ago are increasingly giving in to the hate and misinformation about Israel.

There can be no illusion that none of this is about a ceasefire, aid for Gaza or, the apparent holy grail: the elusive two-state solution. Just look at the language, the actions and the desired outcomes. It was a process that found its roots in the Durban conference of 2001 which supposedly was about anti-racism but which went into the history books as the place where anti-Zionism became acceptable. It was a hate fest for lack of a better word. The subtext was: what we did to South Africa can be done to Israel, we can boycott, obstruct and ultimately delegitimize Israel. The goal is actually one state, without Jews.

There always was some fertile ground to let these hateful sentiments go mainstream, but with a generation raised on algorithmically-driven content rather than historical depth things have accelerated. Barring Hillel Fuld from entering to speak is one more instalment of stifling free speech and of isolating Israel and Jews. At the same time an endless bombardment of misinformation supports this process with ever more players joining the circus of hate and exclusion.

Fuld is an optimist and a compelling speaker who would be open to debate anything I think. Hopefully governments, in particular the Australian one, can learn from this incident and bring back debate and conflicting viewpoints into their midst. Even now, locked out of a country Fuld will no doubt continue his mission to connect, explain, and if possible, convince. With good arguments. That can and should never be silenced. And if the in-person square is closed, I am sure he will deliver his remarks over Zoom, and we should all listen to them.