Twitch streamer and famous YouTuber Zack “Asmongold” Hoyt has had his Zackrawrr account banned after a racist slur about Muslims and Palestinians killed in Gaza went viral on social media. “My guilty conscience,” he shared on X (formerly Twitter) after an online backlash. “Looking back, I was way too much of an asshole on the Palestine issue.” His other Twitch channel, Asmongoldstays up.

In addition to playingHoyt often broadcasts lengthy live chat sessions in which he comments on other people’s YouTube videos or covers other topics that are gaining traction in his particular subreddit. In the middle of a recent livestream, he began talking about Israel’s war on Gaza, which the Gaza Health Ministry says has claimed lives over 40,000 Palestinians since the beginning just over a year ago after the October 7 Hamas attack.

“If you want to view genocide as a systematic killing of a group of people, then genocide is already built into Sharia law, so no, I will not burst into tears when people whose genocide is enshrined in their laws are in “Genocide,” Hoyt said during a part of the stream that was cut off and shared on social media (the original VOD does not appear to be online). “I don’t give a shit. These are terrible people. It’s not even a question. It’s crazy that people don’t see it that way. They would do the same thing.”

He continued:

These people are not your allies, they are not the same as us, they come from an inferior culture that is terrible, kills people because of their identity and is in direct opposition to everything western values ​​stand for, and overall it is an inferior one Culture ways.

The comments were immediately condemned by various Twitch users, streamers and others. Many people pointed this out the terms of use and community guidelines of the Amazon-owned platform that prohibit speech that reinforces negative stereotypes about protected groups or attempts to dehumanize them. Some tagged Twitch called for a ban on Hoyt what the platform has now done for his Zackrawrr channel, which has 1.9 million followers.

Left streamer Hasan “Hasanabi” Pikerwho was a outspoken advocate for years for the rights of the Palestinians, invited Hoyt to his own channel to refute his comments and push back on racist rhetoric. Hoyt later walked back his original comments but did not say he was wrong.

“Looking back, I was way too much of an asshole on the Palestine issue.” he posted on X. “My mistake: Of course no one deserves to have their life destroyed, even if they do things or have views that I find regressive. You deserve it more than me saying such nonsense, I will do better.”

Some of his fans immediately criticized the about-face as giving in to the backlash, while others said it didn’t go nearly far enough. “This is coming from a fan who has been watching regularly for over a decade,” one person wrote. “This wasn’t just an ‘Oh shit, my crap’ situation. You need to apologize properly. To say that an entire culture and ethnicity is “inferior” is Nazism and racism in the truest sense of the word. It’s disgusting.”

Twitch did not immediately respond to a request for comment.