Richard Mellor
I know next to nothing about Boy George except he sang a song titled, Do you Really Want to Hurt Me, or that was a chorus lyric in one of his hits, that’s why, under normal circumstances, I would not bother to comment on him.
But as he’s penned a song sharing his views about Apartheid Israel’s barbaric assault on the Palestinians in Gaza that has been accepted by numerous human rights organizations as well as G*nocide historians, Jewish and non Jewish alike, as a “G*nocide, I feel compelled to say something.
In the song that is titled, “We Will Dance Again” we have lyrics like:
“You say genocide, I say war/ When you’re attacked, that’s what the army’s for/ Does it get ugly? You bet it does/ When I know you wanna kill every last one of us.”. In addition to justifying Israel’s G*encode by describing it as a war, he also attacks the pro-Palestinian movement describing those opposing a crime against humanity as, like “sheep”.
Celebrities whose world is a parallel universe detached from the experiences of the vast majority of human beings, would do better to keep their mouths shut. And unfortunately many of them who oppose Israel's G*nocide have, for fear of retribution, this is particularly the case with actors.
It’s hard to imagine that almost three years after the hundreds, perhaps thousands of Palestinians broke out of the confines of what has been described as the largest outdoor concentration camp in the world, under siege since 2007, that anyone can refer to the conflict as a “war”.
Israel has one of the most powerful militaries in the world, backed and funded by the United States and other western allies. The Palestinian people, constantly under guard, have no navy, no air force, no army.
In response, to the October 7th attack, the Israel has destroyed Gaza completely and it is impossible to know how many thousands of innocent people lie beneath the rubble. Some estimates put the death toll as high as 500,000 including more than 60,000 children, though it is impossible to tell and the Israeli’s are still killing off the witnesses and refuse to allow independent journalists it to Gaza. The Zionists have now moved in to neighboring Lebanon and are razing villages there displacing over one million people.
The non-Jewish population of Israel, in the occupied territories, Israel proper or Gaza, have been attacked for seven decades. Much of the population of Gaza are refugees or children of refugees from villages the Zionist regime destroyed not miles from the camp’s fence and the resident driven in to the strip.
Boy George, whose real name is George Alan O’Dowd, is quite offended at the backlash that his song has generated among the wider public and has responded in a statement given to Britain’s Sun newspaper and published in the Independent.
“The suggestion that I feel no compassion for Palestinians is both untrue and absurd. I am devastated for the loss of the innocent lives on both sides of this war and I call for peace.”, he writes.
He was very disturbed by the attack on the music festival causing him to feel “deep emotions”, “I could have been there and we know that there were people from more than 40 countries who were,”
Has Boy George wondered for one minute who on earth would attend a rock concert a couple of miles from a concentration camp, and what sort of people and country would allow it.
George vomits out the Zionist line again and again arguing that the motive behind the resistance that broke out of Gaza and attacked their captors that day were motivated by a hatred of Jews. This has been the narrative from the beginning but Israel’s brutality has undermined it significantly. Even Piers Morgan, who spouted this line in the early days can’t avoid the obvious, Israel is committing a genocide.
The conflict in Palestine is not a religious war any more than the conflict in Northern Ireland, is. The Palestinians are an occupied people in their own land and have every right to resist occupation. Boy George is of Irish ancestry he should understand that better than most. The colonial people that fought the British in Kenya, Malaya, India, Ireland or any of the colonial possessions were not driven by a hatred of the English or British people; they were fighting their oppressors, the colonizers.
“I understand that is uncomfortable to defend your friends when a war like this is raging but the woman who sells me bagels is not to blame, neither is my doctor or publicist, manager, ex-boyfriend or my thousands of Jewish friends. This song is for them.”
It’s staggering that three years on and witnessing the prominent role young Jews in particular are playing in the movement against the G*nocide and for Palestinians’ right to self-determination, he can have the opinions he does.
The lyrics in his song, he writes, “…doesn’t mean that I don’t have compassion for Palestinians, it doesn’t mean that I agree with what's going on in Israel, but I am always going to defend the people that I love,”
As I re-read his statement I almost feel sorry for him. You love Zionists?
“I am a Jew loving, trans hugging queer hippy and my mother would be proud of me.”. he writes.
If he cared for Jews he would oppose Zionism and its g*nocidal policies that are a danger to Jews throughout the world and fodder for anti-Semites.
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