Despite the UN this week declaring that Israel is committing genocide in Palestine – trailing in the footsteps of similar declarations by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and indeed Israel’s own Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories – it is still jolting to witness someone stand up on a packed stage in front of thousands and call a spade a spade. At London’s Ovo Wembley Arena on Wednesday night, as part of a Palestinian fundraising concert spearheaded by Brian Eno, this is a regular occurrence. “Genocide”. “War crime”. “A slow, grinding, relentless violence.” That last one courtesy of Louis Theroux, I should say. He is just one of a stacked line-up of speakers tonight (Florence Pugh, Riz Ahmed, Benedict Cumberbatch and Richard Gere among them), all of whom express solidarity, horror and righteous fury firmly and plainly. Discussion of Palestine, particularly in the wake of 7 October 2023, has tended to be couched in caveats, or at least very careful language. An estimated 64,000 Palestinian killings later, it is undeniable now that something has shifted.
This is a classic fundraising event, with tonally appropriate musical performances (ballads, soft electronica, musicians who are actually from Palestine) slotted between poetry, speeches and calls to action. Cillian Murphy, Penélope Cruz, Billie Eilish, Joaquin Phoenix and Malala Yousafzai offer support in a pre-recorded video message, but ultimately the celebrities tonight are window dressing. The biggest cheers are reserved for those on the front lines of the crisis: Palestinian journalist Yara Eid, who proclaims “Israel will never silence me… even if they kill me”; plastic surgeons who have operated on wounded Gazans; Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur for the occupied territories, who has long advocated for the Palestinian people and was recently sanctioned by the Trump administration for her apparent “virulent antisemitism and unrelenting anti-Israel bias”. On stage, she calls this a distraction. “They silence dissent by labelling it antisemitism, and they criminalise us [as] terrorists – those who stand against genocide.”
Gere suggests during his time up on stage that ticket holders are on the younger end of the spectrum. He recalls introducing Dire Straits at a Nelson Mandela tribute concert in 1988 as if it happened in the dark ages. But the crowd here seems a real mix of generations and ethnicities, many wearing keffiyehs, many more in T-shirts with pro-Palestinian slogans written across them. The night is long, beginning at 6.30pm and not concluding until just before 11. At first, there is a noticeable surfeit of empty seats – despite earlier claims that tickets sold out within hours of going on sale – but, by 90 minutes in, the arena is heaving.
Musically, highlights include a dazzling medley of Lebanese pop by the Palestinian musician Nai Barghouti, a lovely jangle of jazz and classical piano by the Palestinian composer Faraj Suleiman, and a cacophonous wall of sound by “Brian Eno and Friends” – which tonight includes Paul Weller, Hot Chip and Nadine Shah. Rachel Chinouriri and Cat Burns perform their track “Even”, and Burns is the only speaker who makes reference to the political climate in Britain right now: she mentions her fear at witnessing last weekend’s far-right protests in London, and the comfort of being in a venue surrounded by like-minded individuals. Projected on a screen behind each musical performer is Palestinian artwork, while Cumberbatch and Ruth Negga recite – forcefully and powerfully – Palestinian poetry.
Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu and defenders of the country have long argued that antisemitism is at the root of anti-Israeli sentiment and calls for sanctions on the nation. But tonight it is clear that no one in the room at Wembley Arena believes that Israel’s actions exist in a vacuum. Deafening boos trail mention of British complicity in the atrocities in Gaza – via our exporting of weapon components and our governmental reluctance to use words like “genocide” – while the US-based British broadcaster and writer Mehdi Hasan directly calls out the failings of Western media.
“It infuriates me when [Western journalists] say Israel needs to allow journalists into Gaza,” he says. “Yes, Israel does – but Western media must stop acting as if there aren’t any journalists in Gaza.” He quotes horrifying death toll figures, as well as a report by the Watson School of International and Public Affairs that states that more journalists have been killed in Gaza since 7 October than the number of journalists killed during the Korean war, the Vietnam war, the Iraq war and both World Wars combined. “They were killed as part of Israel’s deliberate campaign to blind the world, to erase all evidence of their crimes,” Hasan says. “To the genociders, there is nothing more dangerous than a camera lens or a microphone.” His speech draws the evening’s biggest roar.
By the show’s end, Together for Palestine is said to have raised £1.5m for Palestinian-led organisations and charities. It isn’t a fundraiser that will change minds – the culture-rattling effects of Live Aid and the 1988 Mandela concert referenced by Gere early in the night could never be replicated in the modern era, which feels more politically and socially bifurcated than ever. But it holds an undeniable power, fuelled by grief, celebration, and a bittersweet sense that this all should have happened far sooner. “Silence in the face of such suffering is not neutrality, it is complicity,” Florence Pugh declares towards the end of the evening. “Empathy should not be this hard – and it should never have been this hard.”
