U2 shared a lengthy post on their website clarifying the band members’ individual stances on Israel and Gaza. “We are not experts in the politics of the region, but we want our audience to know where we each stand,” the Irish group wrote.
Each band member—Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr.—shared a statement with their thoughts on the ongoing war, which has transpired since Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Bono noted that since then he has “generally tried to stay out of the politics of the Middle East.” “This was not humility, more uncertainty in the face of obvious complexity,” he said. “I have over recent months written about the war in Gaza in The Atlantic and spoken about it in The Observer, but I circled the subject.”
The frontman explained that he has chosen to speak up more directly now after seeing photographs of starving people in Gaza. “The images of starving children on the Gaza Strip brought me back to a working trip to a food station in Ethiopia my wife Ali and I made 40 years ago next month following U2’s participation in Live Aid 1985,” he wrote. “Another man-made famine. To witness chronic malnutrition up close would make it personal for any family, especially as it affects children. Because when the loss of non-combatant life en masse appears so calculated… especially the deaths of children, then ‘evil’ is not a hyperbolic adjective… in the sacred text of Jew, Christian, and Muslim it is an evil that must be resisted.”
He noted that he does not equate Palestinians with Hamas. “Given our own historic experience of oppression and occupation, it’s little wonder so many here in Ireland have campaigned for decades for justice for the Palestinian people,” Bono write.
He added, “We know Hamas are using starvation as a weapon in the war, but now so too is Israel and I feel revulsion for the moral failure. The Government of Israel is not the nation of Israel, but the Government of Israel led by Benjamin Netanyahu today deserves our categorical and unequivocal condemnation. There is no justification for the brutality he and his far right government have inflicted on the Palestinian people… in Gaza… in the West Bank.”
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Bono said he wanted to make U2’s stance on the conflict transparent. “As someone who has long believed in Israel’s right to exist and supported a two-state solution, I want to make clear to anyone who cares to listen our band’s condemnation of Netanyahu’s immoral actions and join all who have called for a cessation of hostilities on both sides,” he wrote. “Our band stands in solidarity with the people of Palestine who truly seek a path to peace and coexistence with Israel and with their rightful and legitimate demand for statehood. We stand in solidarity with the remaining hostages and plead that someone rational negotiate their release.”
Bono confirmed that U2 will donate to help with relief in Gaza. “The band is pledged to contribute our support by donating to Medical Aid For Palestinians,” he said.
The other three statements are shorter, but just as decisive and clear. The Edge posed three questions to the Israeli government and Netanyahu, including, “Do you truly believe that such devastation—inflicted so intentionally and relentlessly on a civilian population—can happen without heaping generational shame upon those responsible?”
“We know from our own experience in Ireland that peace is not made through dominance,” The Edge wrote. “Peace is made when people sit down with their opponents—when they recognize the equal dignity of all, even those they once feared or despised. There can be no peace without justice. No reconciliation without recognition. And no future unless we refuse to let the past be repeated.”
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Mullen Jr. added, “The power to change this obscenity is in the hands of Israel. I undoubtedly support Israel’s right to exist and I also believe Palestinians deserve the same right and a state of their own. Silence serves none of us.”
In May, Bono called for an end to the war between Israel and Hamas at 2025 Ivor Novello Awards. During the awards ceremony, held at London’s Grosvenor House, Bono took the opportunity to criticize Hamas and Netanyahu, and to encourage peace. “Hamas release the hostages. Stop the war,” he said. “Israel be released from Benjamin Netanyahu and far-right fundamentalists that twist your sacred texts. All of you protect our aid workers, they are the best of us.”
