A pro-Hamas Islamist preacher began a UK speaking tour on Sunday, despite multiple calls for the government to ban him for his extremism.
Dr Shadee Elmasry began his tour in Birmingham, but will head to Bolton on Monday and Ilford on Tuesday. The tour was organized by the Global Relief Trust.
Elmasry was born and raised in New Jersey, US, but has studied in many different Islamic countries, including Morocco, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The Jerusalem Post did a deep dive into his online presence and discovered a history of extremist, antisemitic and pro-terror views. Here are some of them:
One of his first posts after the October 7 Hamas massacre was on October 8, 2023, when he tweeted: "The people of Gaza finally punched back."
On 26 November 2023, "even if it was Hamas, it's conceivable and maybe even expected that a legitimate resistance [sic] movement will make condemnable mistakes or go to excesses every once in a while. That doesn't take anything away from the morality of their resistance."
Elmasry then hosted a talk show on November 28, 2023, named 'Exposing Israeli Lies' in which he denied the rapes, beheadings, violence on October 7, and presented the massacre as an Israeli lie.
UK MP calls for ban on 'extremist' preacher Shadee Elmasry
On the first anniversary of October 7 in 2024, he retweeted Trevor Noah’s "What Now?" interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates, in which the latter stated that if he had been born in Gaza and lived under its conditions of "oppression" and "poverty," he was not sure he would be "strong enough" to refrain from participating in the October 7 attacks himself. Elmasry justified Coates' words, saying, "UN resolution 2625 allows armed resistance against occupiers."
On October 6, 2025, he tweeted that the teacher of the Jews is "Satan."
On August 18, 2024, he tweeted, "Nobody knows if the Protocols are authentic, but everything here is what we're seeing, and there's only one group benefitting from it. This is Satanism. It may have derived from Jews, but it's far from actual Torah Judaism." Here, he is referring to the infamous antisemitic propaganda text, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
In a November 4, 2024, lecture, Elmasry said he did not know why people were so worried about condemning Hamas, adding: "Show me a Palestinian who says that we should not have done anything to Israel." The video is titled "Palestinians Were RIGHT to Fight Back and Here's Why."
More recently, he did a video series promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories like the so-called Jewish “supremacy”, Israel being behind 9/11, and insinuating that Israel killed Charlie Kirk.
MP Nick Timothy condemned Elmasry's speaking tour, writing on X: "It’s giving a platform to incitement and violent extremism."
Timothy noted that the Global Relief Trust - the organizing group - has reported links with Hamas operatives.
"The Home Secretary has strong powers to exclude foreign nationals whose presence here would not be conducive to the public good. In the case of Shadee Elmasry, she should use them without hesitation," he added.
"It is obvious that this man has no place touring the UK," said Campaign Against Antisemitism. "Dr Shadee Elmasry’s framing of Hamas’ 7th October terrorist atrocities as ‘resistance’ is sickening and smacks of the same insidious rhetoric that plagues so many of our streets and campuses."
"The Home Secretary has the power to block foreigners whose presence in the UK would not be ‘conducive to the public good’ from entering the country. She should intervene immediately to ensure that he is turned back at the border."