‘I’m a Zionist,’ rapper Azealia Banks declares in latest tweet spree

JTA – In 2018, Azealia Banks vowed never to visit Israel again, which she called “nuts”.

But sometime between then and Tuesday, 3 June, she underwent a change of heart: “I’m a Zionist,” she wrote to her 230 800 followers on X.

That tweet, in response to a user who asked her, “R u a Zionist or ur pro-Palestine?”, cascaded into dozens of other posts mixing standard-issue pro-Israel talking points with anti-Arab rhetoric that extended well beyond the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“No black person should be supporting Palestine,” wrote Banks in one of more than 45 posts on the subjects last Tuesday and Wednesday. “Whenever I see stupid ass musicians supporting Palestine blindly without raising the question about black people’s safety and the ongoing ‘industry’ of chattel slavery of black people in the Islamic world It makes my blood boil.”

More than 24 hours later, she was still going, this time about the start of Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, writing, “Palestinians were upset about all of the money and technology that came back to the area with Jews from Europe, and upset about the Jews being able to rapidly build infrastructure, so Palestinians sat by and watched the Jews build and then attacked the Jews and the British before either had established statehood.”

Banks has become a dependable, if unpredictable, social media pundit on Jewish affairs, her commentary ranging from antisemitism to adulation of Ashkenazi cuisine. Some of her perspective, she has said, was earned when, four years ago, she was briefly engaged to Ryder Ripps, a Jewish artist. Her unabashed support of Israel stands in contrast to a range of other musicians who have denounced Israel or expressed pained ambivalence 19 months into the war in Gaza.

In her flurry of posts since last Tuesday, she referred to herself as the “Jewcy Diva Queen of Sheba”, and asserted that she wouldn’t support Palestinian statehood due to what she alleged was the Arabic enslavement of black people.

“The Arab world is not gonna push this oppressed victim sh-t off like they aren’t rampantly enslaving and degrading Africans behind closed doors,” wrote Banks last Tuesday evening. “All these dumbass black celebrities losing their jobs trying to *stand up* to the invisible Jewish boogie man. Give me a f-ing break.”

According to a global index of slavery by advocacy organisation Walk Free, though some Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have high rates of slavery, it’s far less prevalent in others, including Morocco and Egypt, which have rates akin to Western Europe.

In response to a commenter who wrote, “I disagree on the whole bombing Palestinians into oblivion,” Banks responded, “I def don’t agree with it. But I also don’t care.”

Posting an image of fellow rapper Nicki Minaj shrugging her shoulders, she continued, “I wasn’t there on Oct 7 to know what really happened, and I see the Arab world has zero love for black people to the point of still holding us in chains so …”

Banks also wrote that “Palestine is not a country”, and that the “area is called Judea for a reason”. She also called on Israel to give black Palestinians asylum.

“Israel should give all Afro Palestinians asylum. But only the black Palestinians. There are make [sic] around 700 of them left because the Palestinians have genocided them. Free Afro-Palestine and black-Australia,” wrote Banks.

Last Wednesday, Banks compared Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on the Nova festival to a hypothetical fatal attack on California’s Coachella music festival.

“Imagine you’re at Coachella, and some random terrorist just roll up and open fire on the crowd. That’s literally how this sh- started like are you dumb?” wrote Banks. “Israel is just supposed to take that L and send the signal that it’s okay to run up in there and kill people and take hostages ? Be f-ing forreal.”

When an X user brought up her 2018 vow never to set foot in Israel again, made after she said she experienced a series of racist interactions there, she repeated that Israel was “racist as hell”, but said she’d perform there again.

“Israel is racist as hell, and I had a hard time being rejected at restaurants that were completely empty, rejected at the nail salon, ultimately welcomed to sit and have a meal by a brown man at a shakshuka place,” she wrote.

“I would totally go back and perform for my fans because now, in maturity, I’m able to discern and understand that my fans shouldn’t be punished nor should they deal with acts of protest due to s–t they have no control over,” she wrote. “Because it’s important not [to] punish music lovers for societal bullshit.”

In one of her last posts on the subject last Wednesday evening, Banks responded to a user who commented, “The last time she tweeted something like this, I asked a gay group chat what if this was enough to stop stanning her and it caused a fight so severe, that some of those people still don’t talk to each other.”

In response, Banks posted, “Gays 4 Hamas.”