Over the past two months more than 1,000 musicians and record labels have signed on to an initiative to remove their music from Israel in a protest against the massive crimes carried out by the Zionist regime.
Clairo [Photo by Raph_PH / CC BY 4.0]
The campaign’s website explains that No Music for Genocide “is a cultural boycott of Israel.” The participating artists and labels, it goes on,
have geo-blocked and removed their music from that territory in response to Israel’s genocide in Gaza; occupation and ethnic cleansing of the West Bank; apartheid within Israel / ’48; political repression of Pro-Palestine efforts wherever we live; and the music industry’s own ties to weapons and crimes against humanity.
This tangible act is just one step toward honoring Palestinian demands to isolate and delegitimize Israel as it kills without consequence on the world stage.
No Music for Genocide points to the music industry’s double standards and blatant hypocrisy. It notes that within months of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022,
every major label either unilaterally removed their entire catalogue from Russia or closed operations entirely, implicitly or explicitly condemning Putin’s actions while donating to Ukraine. No such measures have been taken against Israel (or in support of Palestinians) after decades of illegal occupation, apartheid, and over two years of accelerated genocide in Gaza. Israel has violated the October 2025 ceasefire over 100 times in Palestine to kill 100s more Palestinians, just as Israel has repeatedly, violently violated earlier ceasefires in both Palestine and in Lebanon.
The list of performers joining the anti-Israel boycott, primarily from the US, Ireland, the UK and Europe, includes Fontaines D.C., Kneecap, The Knife, Massive Attack, Lorde, Björk, Paul Weller, Wet Leg, Clairo, Lucy Dacus, Nao, Wolf Alice, Of Monsters and Men, Nilüfer Yanya, Faye Webster, Arca, MIKE, Japanese Breakfast, Redveil, Hayley Williams, Marina, Muna, Idles and Obongjayar.
The members of Kneecap- Mo Chara, Moglai Bap, DJ Provai [Photo-Kneecap Press]
A representative of No Music for Genocide told Rolling Stone:
We’re hopeful that this new ceasefire will put an end to the worst of the worst, if Israel doesn’t violate it, but our urgency remains unchanged. The ‘peace plan,’ imposed on Palestinians under the threat of continued genocide, offers no guarantees or credible paths for a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza; the end of Israeli apartheid and occupation; Palestinian rights to self-determination, self-governance, and the return of refugees; nor holding Israeli war criminals accountable.
On social media, the group argues that despite the so-called ceasefire,
Palestinians face the brutal consequences of genocide. Israel has inflicted at least 240,000 casualties (with some estimates higher than 650,000) and displaced 95% of Palestinians in the enclave while destroying or damaging 92% of its housing units and 94% of its farmland. Almost all facilities required to sustain life have been targeted. In the Occupied West Bank, state-settler violence against Palestinians has reached historic highs.
In its frequently asked questions (FAQ) section, No Music for Genocide poses the question: “Is it antisemitic to criticize and boycott Israel?”
In response, the group remarks that decades before the Holocaust,
countless Jewish scholars and religious leaders vehemently opposed the political ideology, Zionism, that led to the modern nation-state of Israel. Zionism’s European founding fathers openly spoke about their ambitions in Palestine as a “colonial” project in the 1800s. … More and more Jews around the world are reviving the tradition of Jewish anti-Zionism. In any case, the priority right now is ending Israeli apartheid, occupation, and genocide, not bad faith accusations of antisemitism.
Massive Attack [Photo by Platonova Alina / CC BY 3.0]
In a statement to NPR, Israeli embassy officials in Washington, representatives of a mass murder regime despised in every corner of the globe, condemned the musicians’ protest as “discriminatory, immoral and misguided.”
Such boycotts do nothing to advance peace or improve the lives of either Israelis or Palestinians. On the contrary, they deepen division and harm the very people they claim to support.
In response to the anti-Nazi boycott of 1933 organized by American Jewish organizations, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels declared that reports of Nazi crimes were nothing but “international atrocity propaganda” and that German Jews would be harmed “morally and commercially” if the boycott were not ended.
There is no doubt that No Music for Genocide and the response of large numbers of performers and musicians speak to the broad leftward shift currently under way. The Zionists’ horrific crimes, backed to the hilt by all the great powers, have opened the eyes of tens of millions, especially among the young, to the nature of the present social and economic order.
As we commented in September, in reporting on the Film Workers for Palestine appeal for a boycott of Israeli film institutions:
The steady accumulation of appeals, protests and open letters by thousands of actors, directors and others speaks to genuine anger and a growing radicalization in artistic and intellectual circles. It also hints at a political impasse that needs to be overcome. Protests aimed at government and existing parties, and even the legitimate punishment of Israeli institutions, will not change the ghastly situation. Only the movement of the international working class, coming into action against the capitalist society responsible for these world-historic crimes, can do that. The artists will have to turn their attention in that direction.
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