Social media influencer Sammy Yahud is known for spreading Islamophobic content online.
Published January 27, 2026
Australia has canceled the visa of an Israeli social media influencer who campaigned against Islam, saying it does not accept visitors who come to spread hatred.
“Spreading hatred is not a good reason to come to Australia,” Australian Home Secretary Tony Burke said in a statement on Tuesday, hours after influencer Sammy Yahoud’s visa was canceled three hours before his flight was due to depart for Israel.
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Mr Burke said in a statement to AFP that people who want to visit Australia should apply for the right visa and come for the right reasons.
Hours before his visa was canceled, Yahud wrote to X: “According to Islam, Islam does not tolerate non-believers, apostates, women’s rights, children’s rights, homosexual rights.”
He also called Islam a “disgusting ideology” and an “invader.”
Australia tightened hate crime laws earlier this month after a mass shooting at a Jewish celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach left 15 people dead.
Mr. Yahud, a British-born Israeli citizen who recently acquired Israeli citizenship, also advocated for the deportation of US Congressman Ilhan Omar, a Muslim Somali-American, in a recent post.
Another article mocked the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, which is responsible for coordinating relief for Palestinians and Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
Israel began bulldozing construction of UNRWA’s headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem last week, a move strongly condemned by the world body and Palestinian leaders, who said the leveling of the site marks a “barbaric new era” of unchecked violations of international law by Israeli authorities.
Mr Yahoud flew from Israel to Abu Dhabi despite his visa to Australia being cancelled, but said he was prevented from arranging a connecting flight to Melbourne.
“I have been illegally banned from Australia and I intend to take action,” he wrote to X.
“This is a story about tyranny, censorship and control,” he added in another post.
Yahud’s visa was reportedly revoked under the same law that has been used in the past to deny visas to people on the grounds of spreading hatred.
Sky News Australia reported that Burke had previously canceled the tourist visa of Hillel Fuld, an Israeli-American activist and tech entrepreneur, over his “Islamophobic comments” and of Simcha Rosman, a member of Israel’s far-right Mahdal Religious Zionism party and member of Netanyahu’s coalition government, over concerns that his planned speaking tour in the country would “widen divisions”.
The conservative Australian Jewish Association, which had invited Yahoo to speak at events in Sydney and Melbourne, said it “strongly condemned” the visa decision by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government.
