It’s not unusual in wartime for artists to use their voices to stir the public conscience. What is unusual is when they use those voices to echo accusations usually hurled at Israel from international tribunals, fringe NGOs, or hostile foreign governments.
This week, some 1,000 Israeli artists – musicians, writers, actors, dancers – signed a petition titled “Stop the Horror in Gaza.” The petition accused Israel of starvation and “the senseless destruction of Gaza’s cities.” It called on soldiers not to “give or follow illegal orders” or “commit war crimes.”
It may have been cloaked in moral language, but the substance – particularly its tone and framing – was anything but constructive. It made no mention of Hamas.
That’s why it was frankly heartening to hear voices within the same cultural sphere push back – firmly, morally, and with real credibility. Chief among them was Idan Amedi, the singer, actor, and IDF reservist, who nearly died fighting in Gaza as a reservist in the Engineering Corps.
In a blistering social media post, he called the signatories “detached” and “privileged,” and said they were “amplifying stupidity, ignorance, and lies.”
At the maiden screening Tuesday night of a documentary about him, Amedi said he has fought in three wars, and has lost brothers, comrades, and friends. “I hate war,” he said. “Those fighters who jumped into the fire without hesitation on October 7 and afterward are not war criminals. They are our shield – both physical and moral.”
There is nothing jingoistic about Amedi’s message. There is, however, the clarity of someone who was there, who fought in Gaza’s tunnels. His was a deeply personal response to what he saw as fellow artists echoing the propaganda of Israel’s enemies.
He wasn’t alone. Kobi Aflalo, another prominent singer, condemned those who, from a safe distance, casually invoke the language of war crimes.
“Are you crazy?” he asked. He said the artists should be writing songs of praise to the soldiers, not signing petitions condemning them.
Even Aviv Geffen, hardly a darling of the political Right and someone who said he is “completely in favor of ending the war,” wrote that he could not sign a petition that “makes it seem as though Israel is the criminal party in Gaza – that is simply not true.”
These voices matter. Not only because they offer moral balance, but also because they puncture the illusion, crafted by the petition’s signatories, that the Israeli cultural world speaks with one voice. It does not – nor should it.
Inviting a deeper question
But this episode also invites a deeper question: Why are we even having this conversation about artists’ political positions in the first place? What special insight does a choreographer have on the complexities of urban warfare in Gaza? What makes a singer or novelist more qualified to talk about how to defeat Hamas than a dentist, welder, or social worker?
This isn’t to say that artists aren’t entitled to opinions – of course they are. But the cultural halo around them – this assumption that their moral sensibilities are somehow more refined, their political instincts more trustworthy – is worth reconsidering.
Especially when, intentionally or not, such petitions play directly into the hands of those abroad who seek to delegitimize, isolate, and sanction Israel. The language used – war crimes, starvation, illegal orders – is indistinguishable from what’s heard in the halls of The Hague or on Al Jazeera. That’s not a moral stance: That’s political folly.
Thousands of reservists – many of them artists themselves – were called up to serve after October 7. Some have not returned. Others, like Amedi, returned broken in body. To reduce their sacrifice to a talking point in a petition that accuses them of war crimes is not just hurtful – it’s wrong.
Even opposition leader Yair Lapid, unsparing in his criticism of the government’s handling of the war, said the petition “echoes the language of Israel-haters without explaining the other side.”
This war has taken a heavy toll. The suffering in Gaza is real, and the moral dilemmas are excruciating. But there is a world of difference between wrestling with those dilemmas and condemning your own people while ignoring the responsibility of your enemy.
Art can uplift; it can critique. But when it becomes overly simplistic and risks sounding like propaganda, when it loses the nuance that makes it powerful, it not only fails its audience, it also – and especially – betrays the truth.