Hammer falls on Kanye West after he praises Hitler, posts swastika

Jewish voices across Canada and the U.S. denounced Kanye West, and even Elon Musk re-suspended the rapper's Twitter account.

There’s no going back for Kanye West now, observers wrote on Twitter in the wake of his damning interview with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on Thursday afternoon.

The controversial rapper and 2024 U.S. presidential candidate is facing widespread rebuke for espousing antisemitic hate on Jones’ Infowars podcast and then later doubling down by tweeting an image of a swastika within the Star of David.

The latter stunt led to the rapper, who has legally changed his name to Ye, being suspended from Twitter, though leading voices in the Jewish Canadian community say the damage has already been done. Before being removed from the platform, Ye had more than 30 million Twitter followers, more than twice the estimated population of Jewish people in the world.

Bernie Farber, chair of the Anti-Hate Network and former CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress, warned that Ye is dangerously normalizing antisemitism and that his words may lead to an uptick in violence against the Jewish community in Canada.

“Antisemitism has reached heights that are so dangerous that in my almost 40 years now of dealing with antisemitism, I have never seen anything quite like it,” Farber told Global News.

“I believe that we are going to see, as a result of Kanye West’s hateful actions, we will see violent words turned into violent actions.”

Even before Ye appeared on Jones’ Infowars podcast and lit up the Internet by explicitly praising Hitler, he was already in hot water over numerous antisemitic comments which led to a prior suspension from Twitter and Instagram.

The rapper and fashion designer claimed that he even lost US$2 billion in one day after brands Gap, Adidas and Balenciaga cut partnership ties with him when he spread antisemitic tropes and hate online and to the press. In the midst of the backlash, Ye announced he was running for U.S. president in 2024 with known white supremacist Nick Fuentes and alt-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos on his campaign team.