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U2 frontman Bono delivered sharp criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and lavish praise on Jewish tradition in an interview released Wednesday alongside the band\u2019s new EP, titled \u201cDays of Ash.\u201d<\/p>\n
The album \u2014 the first from U2 in years \u2014 includes a song memorializing Palestinian activist Awdah Hathaleen<\/a>, who was killed by an Israeli settler in the West Bank in July as well as a recitation of the anti-war poem \u201cWildpeace\u201d by Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai.<\/p>\n \u201cAs with Islamophobia, antisemitism must be countered every time we witness it. The rape, murder and abduction of Israelis on Oct. 7 was evil,\u201d Bono said. \u201cBut self-defense is not defense for the sweeping brutality of Netanyahu\u2019s response, measured but the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians.\u201d<\/p>\n Bono\u2019s criticism of Netanyahu alongside the EP\u2019s release comes months after the Irish artist broke his silence on the war in Gaza<\/a> in August, writing at the time on social media that \u201cthe government of Israel led by Benjamin Netanyahu today deserves a categorical and unequivocal condemnation.\u201d<\/p>\n In the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7, Bono had struck a different tone, standing out among other artists for paying tribute to the hundreds of \u201cbeautiful kids\u201d<\/a> murdered at the Nova music festival during a performance.<\/p>\n The new politically charged EP comprises six songs that address a series of high-profile deaths in recent years, including the killing of Sarina Esmailzadeh<\/a> by Iranian security forces in 2022 and the fatal shooting of Renee Good<\/a> by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent last month.<\/p>\n The Amichai recitation comes immediately before the song memorializing the death of Hathaleen, titled \u201cOne Life at a Time.\u201d<\/p>\n In a wide-ranging interview about the band\u2019s latest EP that accompanied its release, Bono lamented that Judaism was \u201cbeing slandered by far-right fundamentalists from within its own community.\u201d<\/p>\n He added, \u201cWhile I\u2019m someone who is a student of, and certainly reveres, the teachings in many of the great faiths, I come from the Judeo-Christian tradition and so I feel on safe ground when I suggest: There has never been a moment where we needed the moral force of Judaism more than right now, and yet, it has rarely in modern times been under such siege.\u201d<\/p>\n Bono noted that another song on the EP, titled \u201cThe Tears of Things,\u201d takes inspiration from a book of the same title by Richard Rohr, which Bono said made the case that \u201cthe greatest of the Jewish prophets found a way to push through their rage and anger at the injustices of the day \u2026 until they ended up in tears.\u201d<\/p>\n Critiquing Netanyahu\u2019s prosecution of the war in Gaza, Bono then cited the words of prominent Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari, who has described the war in Gaza as a \u201cspiritual catastrophe for Judaism itself.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAs if all Jews are to blame for the actions of Netanyahu, Smotrich and Ben Gvir. \u2026 It\u2019s insane, but the waters get even muddier when anyone criticizing the lunacy of the far right in Israel is accused of antisemitism themselves,\u201d continued Bono.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.jta.org \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" U2 frontman Bono delivered sharp criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and lavish praise on Jewish tradition in an interview released Wednesday alongside the band\u2019s new EP, titled \u201cDays of Ash.\u201d The album \u2014 the first from U2 in years \u2014 includes a song memorializing Palestinian activist Awdah Hathaleen, who was killed by an 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