The legendary band U2 has always been outspoken about their opinions and is now sharing their thoughts on the conflict in Gaza.
Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr. posted statements on their official website condemning Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, calling for the safe return of the remaining Israeli hostages, and requesting access to critical care for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
“We have all been horrified by what is happening in Gaza for some time, but the blockade of humanitarian aid and now the plans for a military takeover of Gaza City have taken the conflict into uncharted territory,” their website states. “We are not experts on the politics of the region, but we want our audience to know where each of us stands.”
“Apart from the attack on the Nova music festival on October 7, which felt like it happened while U2 was on stage at the Sphere in Las Vegas, I’ve generally tried to stay out of Middle Eastern politics,” Bono wrote in his personal statement.
“It wasn’t humility, but rather uncertainty in the face of a complex reality,” he added. “In recent months, I’ve written about the war in Gaza in The Atlantic and spoken about it in The Observer, but I’ve skirted around the topic.”
He then wrote that, as “a co-founder of the ONE Campaign, which fights AIDS and extreme poverty in Africa, I felt my experience should focus on the catastrophes facing that work and that part of the world” before stating that “there is no hierarchy in those things.”
Seeing “images of starving children in the Gaza enclave” has been deeply painful, Bono added, given his experience witnessing famine in Ethiopia years before.
“Witnessing chronic malnutrition up close would make it personal for any family, especially when it affects children,” he wrote. “Because when the mass loss of non-combatant life seems so calculated… especially the deaths of children, then ‘evil’ is not a hyperbolic adjective… in the sacred text of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, it is an evil that must be resisted.”
“As someone who has always believed in Israel’s right to exist and supported a two-state solution, I want to make it clear to anyone who will listen that our band condemns the immoral actions of [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and joins all those who have called for a cessation of hostilities on both sides,” Bono wrote. “If these are not Irish voices, please, please, please stop and listen to the Jewish voices.”
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