There can be no debate about Kanye West - he clearly hates Jewish people and should be challenged on it
13 February 2025, 15:34 | Updated: 14 February 2025, 16:12
What happens when a celebrity declares that they are a Nazi, and that Jewish people should be slaves?
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In the case of Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, it seems that the answer is very little.
This is not a borderline case. There can be no debate about Ye: he clearly hates Jewish people.
This is not his first time.
In 2022, Adidas was forced to end its partnership with him following our petition, which quickly gained over 180,000 signatures and helped the company to find the wherewithal to end its lucrative partnership.
The posts that Ye published last week could not have been more extreme—yet the world of entertainment seems content to continue working with him and hosting him at its events.
Had Ye been posting from the UK or Europe, he’d have been committing a criminal offence, but in the US, free speech is close to absolute under the First Amendment.
The premise of the First Amendment has always been that it is better to debate and condemn extremists and bigots rather than silence them.
But that only works if people actually debate and condemn.
For the famously vocal world of entertainment, the hushed response to Ye declaring that he is a Nazi and that Jewish people should all be slaves is disturbing.
We might charitably call it a blind spot, but really it is worse than that; it is a double standard.
In a society that defends free speech, even when it constitutes incitement, this silence is dangerous.
It leaves a radicalising racist like Ye free to spout his vitriol and poison minds practically unchallenged.
Online platforms like X provide Ye with a mega stage to spew his Jew-hating rhetoric.
For those who dismiss his words as mere ramblings that the masses will ignore: Ye has twice as many followers on X as there are Jewish people in the world.
And just to prove that he knows he can get away with it, he proceeded to launch a t-shirt emblazoned with a swastika on his website.
This is a symbol forever associated with the industrial slaughter of six million Jewish men, women, and children.
In response, together with The Houmous Foundation, we have launched our own t-shirts emblazoned with the Star of David—a symbol of resilience and pride.
Every purchase is a statement: We will not be intimidated. We will not be silent.
It would be nice to see the eagerly virtue-signalling celebrities of the world wearing one — it might be easier since they seem to have trouble speaking out.
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Gideon Falter is Chief Executive of Campaign Against Antisemitism.
Follow @GideonFalter on X
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