For this Jewish rock fan, ‘Free Palestine’ no longer feels like freedom - comment

I remember going to see Bruce Springsteen in the late 1970s, when, at the end of his exhausting three-hour marathons dedicated to embracing life, he would shout out before the encore, “Remember, nobody wins unless everybody wins.”

To me, that albeit naive sentiment embodied the spirit of rock & roll, the invitation inside Big Star’s “Thirteen” of “Rock and roll is here to stay, come inside, well, it’s okay.”

I bought the No Nukes album in 1980, paid to see the film, and campaigned against nuclear power plants at Seabrook, New Hampshire. I chanted “Sandinista” along with The Clash, even though I had barely a smidgen of an idea of what the whole Nicaragua conflict was about. Rock & roll and social justice went hand in hand, and I found a loving home.

That promise of inclusion, safety, and community has become increasingly shattered for this Jewish, Israeli Zionist amid the baffling intersection of ‘Free Palestine’ with the liberal values I cherished growing up with in the US.

Last week, at the impressive and impassioned Power to the People concert in Maryland organized by longtime progressive Tom Morello, a Springsteen insider and onetime leader of agit-rockers Rage Against the Machine, performers rightfully railed against the destructive policies of US President Donald Trump, the brutality of ICE, and the threat of fascism making inroads in America.

However, Macklemore – already the recipient of a significant career boost when booted off of the Ed Sheeran tour for turning his opening set into a political pro-Hamas rally – delivered a prerecorded video message that defined “power to the people” as combating humanitarian crises around the world, including “And lastly, Free Palestine.”

During Public Enemy’s incendiary performance, frontman Chuck D called out “Free Palestine, Free Haiti, and please free a closed mind.”

'Voted to remove Ed Sheeran from the lineup'

And Morello himself, while not spouting “Free Palestine” directly, entered the fray when he announced to the cheering crowd that the festival’s artists had “voted to remove Ed Sheeran from the lineup” – an indirect reference to Macklemore’s dismissal from the Sheeran tour.

The same week, country superstar Zach Bryan, apparently in a big middle finger to New England Patriots and Gillette Stadium owner Robert Kraft, who pressured promoters to drop Macklemore from the Sheeran tour, sported a black “Free Palestine” T-shirt (along with a curious far-right “Appeal to Heaven” insignia) on both nights of his sold-out shows at the stadium.

His drummer wore a shirt bearing the name Hind Rajab, a Palestinian girl killed by the IDF in Gaza in 2024, along with a big “5,” her age.

It appears that “Free Palestine” and its equally simplistic and sinister sister slogan “Genocide” have become a prerequisite for entertainers, if they are as far left as Morello or as far right as Bryan.

Anyone who invokes sympathy for Israel – whether Sheeran or Pink, who said that Jewish families at Sheeran’s shows should not have to be uncomfortable – or attempts to explain that there are two sides to the Israel-Palestinian story, that maybe there was no genocide, a factoid invented by the Qatari propaganda machine, is immediately ridiculed and ostracized by the hip fashion plate keffiyeh wearers.

Let’s face it – a well-placed keffiyeh scarf looks much cooler than a yarmulke. And “Free Palestine,” like “Sandinista” some 45 years ago, is an easy, guilt-free way to feel like you’re politically active without having to make an effort.

But if anyone would take a minute and look for a second beyond the slogan, there’s no way to interpret it as anything but a call to dismantle the State of Israel. And for a Jewish concertgoer to hear it chanted with gusto, it’s not only uncomfortable; it’s scary... and dangerous.

That simplistic but loaded phrase being chanted only days before October 7, the third anniversary of the brutal assault by Palestinian Hamas terrorists, was a grotesque distortion of history and what is right and wrong.

This week, Israelis have mourned their indescribable losses of October 7 and since, as freshly as if it took place yesterday. Tales of unbelievable heroism contrasted with recollections of unbelievable Hamas savagery.

The “Free Palestine” advocates ignore that narrative and treat Israelis not as victims but as arrogant aggressors intentionally wiping out Palestinian children for sport. As we know here, but apparently few others do, nothing could be further from the truth.

A few artists – a motley crew, to be sure – get it. They have stood up on Israel’s side, ranging from A-lister Jerry Seinfeld and established star David Draiman of Disturbed to ’80s pop star Boy George (who just sold out the Menorah Mivtachim Arena in Tel Aviv in November and added another show), 2000s-era singer/songwriter Five for Fighting, folk rocker (and Bob Dylan’s son-in-law) Peter Himmelman, and actor/comedian Michael Rappaport.

But most everyone else, whether fearful of shrinking their fan base and income or simply hesitant to wade into the lethal waters of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has remained silent.

However, silence is no longer an option. Gaza is in ruins, and thousands of people are wallowing in tents as the winter approaches.

Every Gazan death, like every Israeli death, in this conflict can be placed at the feet of Hamas. Gaza must be freed from its deadly clutches and its refusal to disarm and relinquish control of the land it destroyed, to enable its rebuilding.

That’s what “Free Palestine” should mean, not the profane falsification, currently proliferating on concert stages, at film festivals, and on awards show daises around the world, that places the blame only on Israel and blindly encourages the alarming global rise of antisemitic attacks against Jews.

That’s when I would feel like it’s a safe environment to go to concerts again in the US or Europe – when Zach Bryan’s drummer can also wear a T-shirt with the names of Ariel and Kfir Bibas, murdered intentionally by Hamas, and with their ages, four and nine months, and be embraced by the crowd as vociferously as when he splashed Hind Rajab, killed inadvertently by the IDF in a war attempting to free hostages.

That’s when I’ll feel heard and included – when the audience and the performer chant together, in a righteous call for liberty and justice that the best rock & roll has always championed: “Free Palestine... from Hamas!”

Springsteen and Joan Baez expressed it best when they performed a powerful acoustic duet, at the Power to the People concert last week, of Dylan’s iconic “Chimes of Freedom.”

“Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed

For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones and worse

And for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe

And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing”

When the aching ones and their wounds refer to both the Gazans and the Israelis who have lost so much, that’s when everybody can start winning again.