David Draiman, the lead singer of the heavy metal band Disturbed, paused in the middle of a concert to give an impassioned speech about Israel, saying of Hamas’ claims that they were “freedom fighters,” “Freedom fighters, my f***ing a**.”
In the middle of his concert, Draiman welcomed a nine-year-old girl on stage, who brought him a bracelet with Draiman’s name on it. When Draiman saw the gift, he got down on his knees to hug her, saying, “That’s awesome. I’m getting kind of misty-eyed just looking at it.”
Holding up the gift, he said, “What it says is Am Yisrael Chai. And what that means,” pointing his finger at the crowd, “is the nation of Israel lives and will endure.”
“You know, I’ve held back speaking about this,” he declared. “War is hell in every sense of the word. It breaks my heart to see the ridiculous loss of life on both sides. It breaks my heart that the two people on the face of this planet that are closest in blood lineage to anyone on the planet, the Jews and the Arabs, have been fighting each other for centuries and it’s absolutely maddening and it’s ridiculous. And there needs to be a future where we have peace and coexistence, and the only way that’s going to happen is if the next generation is no longer taught to hate.”
“People like to go ahead and say that people who come from my lineage — and I have relatives, over 2,000 of them, still living in Israel, I knew people, I miss people, that were slaughtered like animals at the NOVA festival. I have a friend of mine who had to sit and bide his time with his friend in a garbage heap while friends of his were being raped right next to him by these barbarians who call themselves ‘freedom fighters,’” he recalled.
“Freedom fighters, my f***ing a**,” he snapped. “Rape is not ‘resistance.’ Slaughtering innocents at a music festival that’s meant to bring people together of all walks of life is not ‘resistance.’”
“And I genuinely feel empathy for the Palestinian people despite what everyone on the other side of the equation likes to claim,” he said. “There isn’t a single Jew on the face of this planet that does not celebrate life. We celebrate life. Hamas celebrates death, and they need to be eradicated. Not the Palestinians, but Hamas. We need to save Gaza from Hamas for a future for the Palestinians and for a future for the Israelis so that finally we can bring some sort of a prosperous coexistence and an end to these countless years of bloodshed and struggle.”
“Do you understand? It is a dark time we’re living in, and there are people who like to go ahead and use our fear of one another as an excuse to gain power, as an excuse to profit off of our own misery and suffering. It’s dark times, my people; it’s dark times. But sometimes darkness can show you the light,” he concluded.
Disturbed frontman @davidmdraiman paused in the middle of the concert to say this– pic.twitter.com/ML3sMBjDHq
— Marina Medvin 🇺🇸 (@MarinaMedvin) February 28, 2024