Canada bars Jerusalem deputy mayor Arieh King from entering country over war crimes complaints

A scheduled visit to Toronto and Montreal by West Jerusalem's Deputy Mayor Arieh King was cancelled on Tuesday after Canadian authorities barred the hardline politician from entering the country. Meir Weinstein, the organiser of an event where King was due to speak, said in a post on X that the Canadian government had cancelled King’s electronic travel authorisation, denying him entry. Weinstein formerly led the violent far-right Jewish Defense League in Canada, which the FBI described as a “right-wing terrorist group”. Grassroots campaigners, anti-genocide activists, the Legal Centre for Palestine, the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians and the Hind Rajab Foundation pushed Canadian authorities to block King’s visit. The organisations also filed a criminal complaint with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. “We are glad to see the Canadian authorities act on the facts outlined in our submissions. As a facilitator of ethnic cleansing in occupied East Jerusalem, Arieh King's actions are not only illegal under international law, they are illegal under Canadian law,” the Legal Centre for Palestine said in a post on X. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters King, a British-Israeli citizen whose parents came from the UK, is a well-known anti-Palestinian settler. He lives in the settlement enclave of Ma’ale HaZeitim, inside the Palestinian neighbourhood of Ras al-Amud in occupied East Jerusalem. Big win today! Following an @LCPal_ca/@ICJPalestine submission & @SMohyeddin's reporting, Canada has denied entry to Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem @arieh_king. There are reasonable grounds to believe King is complicit in forcible transfer & persecution as crimes against humanity.🧵 https://t.co/rAtdJY9i6c pic.twitter.com/JCUI65jBze — Heidi Matthews (@Heidi__Matthews) August 25, 2026 Organisers presented King’s visit to Canada and a subsequent trip to the US as opportunities to raise funds for “investment” around Jerusalem. The Israel Land Fund organised the visit. King founded the organisation, which works to forcibly displace Palestinian families from their homes in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank and replace them with exclusively Jewish settlements. Campaigns against Palestinians and Christians King also has a long public record of calling for war crimes against Palestinians. In December 2023, two months after Israel began its genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, King called on Israeli forces to “pick up the pace”. In a social media post at the time, he described detained Palestinians in Gaza as less than human. “They are not human beings and they are not human animals. They are subhuman, and this is how they should be treated,” he wrote. King has also called for the mass killing of UN staff working for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa). During Israel’s demolition of the agency’s headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem in January, he declared: “It’s either them or us.” “With God’s help, we will destroy, we will eliminate and annihilate all Unrwa personnel,” he added. Israel has killed at least 393 Unrwa staff in Gaza. In November 2022, King advertised for a manager to develop a project intended to “encourage” the emigration of “non-Jews” from what he calls the Land of Israel. Church of England votes to hear Palestinian Christians on Israeli genocide in Gaza Read More » In a candid Hebrew interview, he said: “If we succeed in taking a quarter of a million or half a million Arabic speakers out of the country’s borders, that will be enough for us.” He said the project would use international recruitment companies to target young Arabic speakers with overseas employment. “I will approach a 19-year-old Arabic speaker who has just finished high school and persuade him to leave, and perhaps they will not return,” he said. King openly described the project’s purpose as ideological. He speculated that Arabs who moved abroad would reach a “point of no return”, marry local people and remain outside the country. King has also participated in campaigns targeting Christians in Jerusalem. In May 2023, he led protests against Christians visiting the city. One participant was filmed spitting towards Christian worshippers, reflecting a practice found among extremist Jewish groups that targets Christian clergy, pilgrims and religious symbols. King has said Christians need to understand that they are “unwanted in Israel and in Jerusalem in particular”. He also worked to stop a conference examining attacks and spitting on Christians in Jerusalem, describing the proposed event as “antisemitic”.