Last month, Bruce Springsteen “share[d] a stage with hardcore leftist groups,” when he headlined the Power to the People festival. The festival, organised by Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello, was explicitly pro-Palestine. Chuck D of Public Enemy called from the stage: “This concert is not promoted by Ed Sheeran’s promoters. Free Palestine, free Haiti, and please free closed minds.”
Although Bruce Springsteen has always vaguely been a man of the Left, he also has a large conservative following and has been reluctant to make a clear political stand, instead preferring to make generalised progressive statements. So when someone like Springsteen starts to move, you know something serious is happening.
In 1984, Ronald Reagan tried to appropriate Springsteen’s anti-Vietnam war song “Born in the USA” for his election campaign, saying; “America’s future rests in the message of hope in the songs of a man so many young Americans admire.” Springsteen’s response was muted, and largely limited to an oblique comment that Reagan had not been listening to his previous album, Nebraska.
Even though I haven’t seen any reports of Springsteen actually calling for a Free Palestine, his appearance at the festival is a sign of a more general trend that many more mainstream artists are no longer staying silent on Gaza.
The persecution of Sally Rooney
On Thursday, 15th of October, best-selling Irish author Sally Rooney, announced that her publisher Faber would no longer sell her books in the UK — a result of her promising to donate any profits from her work to the non-violent organisation Palestine Action, which has been banned by Britain’s Labour government.
A statement from Rooney said:
“In July 2025, the direct-action protest group Palestine Action was proscribed as a terrorist organisation in the UK. The following month, I wrote an opinion piece expressing my intention to go on supporting Palestine Action, which is not a proscribed or otherwise prohibited group here in the Republic of Ireland.
As a result, the fulfilment of contracts to publish my work in the UK could now constitute a serious criminal offence. After a process of consultation and deliberation, and with my full agreement, my publisher Faber has therefore determined that it can no longer supply my work within the UK. I have made every effort to be honest with the public about my beliefs and intentions, and I am wholly prepared to accept the consequences.”
The UK has reached the ridiculous point where rapists, murderers, and war criminals are allowed to sell and profit from their books, but one of the most talented writers of her generation is not. Things became even sillier, when climate activist Professor Andreas Malm was banned from entering the UK because he was due to share a platform with Huda Ammori, co-founder of Palestine Action. And the topic they were due to speak on? The way in which the effective ban on Rooney’s books affects free speech in the UK.
Clampdown and Resistance
Rooney’s experience shows that while more artists are becoming vocal on Palestine, state crackdowns are continuing, and probably becoming harsher. After years of increased repression, I believe that the arts have now reached a tipping point.
In January 2024, 87-year old Palestinian artist Samia Halaby had an exhibition at Indiana University cancelled. In July 2026, Massive Attack were banned from Singapore. Recently, Oscar-winning actor Susan Sarandon talked of a coordinated campaign by studios to deny her work because of her support for Palestine.
Increased repression has been met with increased resistance. Last year, many acts removed their music from Spotify in protest against Spotify founder Daniel Ek’s large investments in the defence technology company Helsing, which, as the BDS movement reports “has direct contracts with multiple international arms companies that are complicit in genocidal Israel’s regime of apartheid and military occupation, including Rheinmetall, Saab and Airbus.”
Spotify has also run racist recruitment ads for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and for Israel’s prison service. A campaign is developing, by artists and music fans alike, to isolate Spotify because of its support for genocide. Over 1000 bands and artists from Björk to Massive Attack, and Primal Scream to Sigur Rós have joined the No Music for Genocide project, refusing to allow their music to be sold in the apartheid state of Israel.
The need for a united response
The radicalisation of artists does not happen independently from what is happening outside the concert halls. The movement against the Vietnam war gave birth to Jimmy Cliff, Jimi Hendrix, and Marvin Gaye, each of whom produced great songs which were somehow inspired by the anti-war sentiment. Simultaneously, these were individual responses which were not really part of any collective resistance.
Later campaigns saw musicians and artists become recognisable parts of political movements. Rock Against Racism (RAR) organised many festivals and individual concerts in support of the Anti Nazi League’s fight against Nazis in Britain. One particular success involved the reggae band Steel Pulse being joined onstage by Jimmy Pursey, singer of Sham 69, some of whose followers were being attracted by Nazi ideas.
In the 1980s, Steven van Zandt, another Springsteen guitarist, now maybe best known for playing Tony Soprano’s deputy Silvio Dante, formed the collective Artists United Against Apartheid (AUAA) with Africa Bambaata, Lou Reed, Gil Scott-Heron and many others. AUAA released the single Sun City, in protest against bands like Queen, who were breaking the musical boycott of South Africa.
Organisations like RAR and AUAA had two main effects: firstly, they showed a collective response of artists coming together rather than just making individual statements. Secondly they appealed to a young audience, telling them that their heroes were also on the right side of history, and encouraging them to join a growing movement.
The active involvement of musicians and artists helped break down feelings of isolation and powerlessness amongst their audience. If you want to know why this is important, just ask Greta Thunberg who regularly wears a shirt from anti-genocide band Fontaines DC.
Something akin to this is starting to happen around Palestine. We see this with the Power to the People festival, and with Macklemore’s Free Palestine tour. We see it in the broad range of artists who have vocally supported Sally Rooney. A lengthening list of mainstream artists and sports stars who have spoken up for Rooney now includes Paul Mescal, Gary Lineker, Zadie Smith, and Daisy Edgar-Jones.
Further reaching campaigns are both possible and necessary. Most artists’ campaigns so far have been reactive – a response to more repression. We must now strengthen the campaigns of artists opposing genocide. We need a Rock Against Racism for our times.
Germany’s history of repression
I am writing this article for a largely German-based audience, and can anticipate a response which says: “sure, a campaign like this would be great, but it would never work here.” Censorship of pro-Palestinian expression in German culture even has its own Wikipedia page. The indifference of the liberal German art world towards genocide manifested in Wim Wenders’s 2026 Berlinale speech, which called for silence in the face of Staatsräson.
This is nothing new: as long ago as 2017, Kae Tempest cancelled a gig in Berlin following “personal threats” due to Tempest’s support for Palestine. In 2018, the Ruhrtriennale festival uninvited the band Young Fathers, because of their support for Palestine (following protests, the band was reinvited). An exhibition in Germany by Brian Eno was cancelled in 2021.
In 2022, at the Dokumenta15 art festival in Kassel, the Indonesian art collective Taring Padi were forced to remove a mural following accusations of antisemitism. British-Bangladeshi artist Hamja Ahsan, who was also exhibiting, was harassed by politicians from the SPD to the AfD. At the time, Hamja told the Left Berlin: “I thought Germany was a place of artistic freedom and the opposite is true.”
Many of these cancellations include Jewish artists, the likes of Adam Broomberg, Candice Breitz, and Deborah Feldman. All of these cancellations precede October 7th. According to Emily Dische-Becker, 30% of people who have been cancelled in Germany for “antisemitism” are themselves Jewish.
In the weeks following October 7th, Palestinian author Adania Shibli was uninvited from the Frankfurt Book Fair, and the premiere of Anne-Marie Jacir’s film Wajib was cancelled by ARD. The multicultural decolonial, queer*feminist, centre Oyoun was closed down by the Berliner Senat for alleged antisemitism, after it hosted an event by a Jewish organisation.
International artists who used to live in Berlin like Nan Goldin and Ai Weiwei have left the city. At a retrospective in 2025, Goldin said: “This is a city that we used to consider a refuge. Now over 180 artists, writers and teachers have been canceled since October 7th, some for something as banal as a like on Instagram. Many of them Palestinian, 20% of them Jews.“
The repression has continued. In 2025, several Kneecap gigs were cancelled in Germany, including the Hurricane and Southside festivals. Earlier this year, Germany deported Bob Vylan. I’m sure that any reader of this article has a dozen more cases which they could add to this growing list.
Does this mean that resistance in Germany is impossible?
In November 2024, I wrote an article arguing that it was possible to build a mass movement in Germany for Palestinian rights. When it was published, the article seemed delusional. Despite polls which said most Germans opposed Israel, virtually no white German was prepared to go public and support Palestine. Nonetheless, on 29th of September 2025, 150,000 people demonstrated for Palestine in Berlin, and the great majority of them were white Germans.
In my article, I identified several groups — students, artists, environmental activists, Black Germans, and internationals — where Palestine solidarity was already visible. All of these groups are amongst those which are most open for cultural resistance. At the recent GenZ demonstration, more demonstrators were wearing kufiyahs than at nearly any demonstration I have attended in Germany — including demos for Palestine.
Even in the worst of times, nearly 6000 artists signed an Open letter to the Berlin Senate Cultural Administration in 2024. The statement was against the compulsory commitment to the controversial IHRA definition of antisemitism as a prerequisite for cultural funding from the federal state of Berlin. It was never the case that Berlin artists were indifferent to the suffering of the Palestinians.
More recently anti-fascist rapper Dahabflex appeared at a LINKE election concert in Berlin-Neukölln, and called “Death, Death to the IDF” and “Yalla, Yalla Intifada.” To their shame, the party and its mayoral candidate distanced themselves from the rapper (Eralp said that she was “appalled,” and called for repercussions). Yet Dahabflex hit a nerve. Shortly afterwards, he released a track called Shut Elbit Down.
The experience of Dahabflex’s cultural intervention shows that artists and musicians can speak to a radicalising young audience, even while our political leaders prevaricate. Wim Wenders and Boy George may have hegemony in the old cultural scene, but we have a new generation emerging who are growing up on Kneecap and Sally Rooney.
Antifada
For the last few months, I have been working with friends from the music scene on Antifada — a new attempt to unite the anti-fascist movement with the dynamism of recent Palestine protests. It is too early to say how much fruit this initiative will bear, but it is surely worth a go. The times in which we live demand it.
German-Lebanese artist Jara Nassar, who is also involved in Antifada, says: “It’s time for artists to fight back. We’ve gotten so used to self-silencing, we don’t even recognize it anymore. Initiatives such as RAGE Club or Syndicat Kunst und Kultur, which support artists to push back against censorship, are urgently necessary.”
A mass cultural movement for Palestine is possible, but only talking about it does not make it happen. If we want a new movement to take wing, we have to make it so. For this reason, I would encourage any artist or art lover who wants to support Palestine to join the RAGE club kick off event on Saturday, 21st of November at Theater X.
RAGE Club kick off, Thursday 21st November from 5pm in Theater X, Wiclefstraße 32.
