Discussion on Gaza and Apartheid

You have been vocal in your criticism of the killing in

Gaza and of the treatment of the Palestinians over a number of years,

probably the last 20 years.

And – It's exactly 20. Exactly 20? Yeah.

Why did you decide, I mean, you must have known

that saying something about that,

you were going to forfeit some of your hard earned rock star privileges.

Yeah. I mean, right? Yeah. Yeah. I went there. Oh.

I did a gig in a place called Neve Shalom in Arabic,

which was a peace village halfway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem,

where they grew chickpeas. And I did a gig in the open air.

And I did it after I'd cancelled a gig in Tel Aviv in a football stadium called,

I can't remember what it's called, Hyakon, it's called Hyakon Park.

And it's built on the ruins of a destroyed Palestinian village.

So, and I'd never been anywhere near Israel,

and I'd believed all the propaganda of,

you know, the socialist Israelis with their democratic ways,

rolling their sleeves up and creating all this, you know, a wonderful country.

And then I went there, and I saw the apartheid.

I saw what was happening.

And I went back again, I went back two years later,

and I drove all over the West Bank with Unra,

and with a woman from Unra called Allegra Bacheo.

And I'll never forget, we were driving north towards Jenin one day, and I went,

well, at least they have nice roads, because it was a nice two lane blacktop

tarmac road. And Allegra looked at me like I was daft or something, and she said,

yeah, if you're Jewish. I went, what are you talking about?

She said, you're not allowed to drive on this road unless you're Jewish. Don't be,

I said, I just said, don't be silly.

Can you imagine going, you want to drive to Pennsylvania or somewhere,

you know, Philadelphia, and you go to get on the I 95,

and they go, you're a Christian, aren't you?

Because if you're not, you can't go on the road, and you go, what? Don't be daft.

Well, that's it.

It's a completely apartheid society.

If you're an Arab, you're not allowed on the road.

I didn't believe it, but I did after a bit, and I saw,

and it was just hell on earth. They've created hell on earth.

And in that visit and those visits that I made,

you know, I decided that I would be vocal and do

anything that I could to help my Palestinian brothers and sisters to achieve

equal human rights with their Jewish brothers and sisters between the Jordan

River and the sea, not asking anyone to kill anyone, right?

But you have to have equal, you can't have apartheid.

You cannot allow

apartheid societies to spring up in the world.

That is not a way to

encourage one another to be kind,

in my view.

So you see this, you're stunned by it, moved by it, outraged by it.

When do you decide to talk about it?

Did you think about it? Immediately. Yeah.

And what was the response you got?

Well, the Israeli lobby

in America particularly were not best pleased.