Palestinian pop star Bashar Murad: Why silence is not an option in the fight for Palestine

It’s been nearly two years since Palestinian pop star Bashar Murad performed in his homeland – and he misses it terribly.

For the past year-and-a-half, the 32-year-old singer-songwriter and filmmaker has been touring and performing in Japan, Europe and the UK – or as he calls it in his song, the Wild Wild West, where, “even if you do your best and you pass that test, doesn’t mean you’ll make it.”

In the music video, Bashar can be seen flying a plane over the Separation Wall, across Jerusalem and into Europe. He then hitches a ride with some cowgirls in a pick-up truck filled to the brim with beautiful, ripe watermelons, a clever nod that says he might be leaving Palestine, but he is taking his cultural identity with him.

But where he would really like to be performing right now is his home city, Jerusalem.

“There's nothing like being back home and singing to people who can relate to the words I'm saying,” Bashar tells The New Arab.

"This comes from my experience of living in Palestine and growing up there, and the frustrations that come not just from the occupation, but day-to-day issues we deal with as regular humans.”

However, Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza and annexation of the West Bank are making it impossible for Palestinian music artists to perform in their homeland, at a time when connection and solidarity through music and art are most needed.

Palestinian music artists constantly face logistical hurdles, from obtaining travel documents in place of passports and expensive visas to crossing checkpoints and moving between cities, making performing in their homeland nearly impossible. This, Bashar says, is why many of them end up moving abroad to establish their music careers.

'I’m never going to be silent'

Bashar has been singing for the last decade but really burst onto the international Arabic music scene with his 2021 EP, Maskhara, with dancefloor hits like Intifada On The Dance Floor that have contagious melodies you can dance the night away to, but lyrics that speak of deeper truths, like dancing and drinking to escape the depression and bullsh** — the maskhara — of Israeli occupation.

“Music to me is like an autobiography. It's therapy,” he says.

“Right now, I’m working on some new music, which I started writing four years ago. My new album, which was produced by legendary music producer Howie B, will be out next year, and it's a new sound for me. The lead song is called Kawkab, and it’s basically me saying I took the fastest spaceship to another planet because this one is horrible,” Bashar shares with The New Arab. 

“Escapism is a layer that's present in a lot of my music. It's also in my debut EP, Maskhara. A lot of the songs are about escapism, but it's not the escapism of giving up; it's the escapism of taking a break or a moment for self-care to be able to come back the next day and continue the fight. But even that is a privilege that Palestinians in Gaza don't have.” 

The need for Palestinian music artists to sing about Palestine has become more pressing than ever, as the genocide in Gaza nears two years. For Bashar, it has become inescapable, and he feels a sense of responsibility to use his music and platforms to challenge censorship wherever possible.

Last October, on the day he was set to perform in Paris’ Café de la Danse, the venue told Bashar he was forbidden from making any political statements on stage, and if he did, the show would be stopped. But they messed with the wrong artist. During the show, Bashar sang his song ITSAHELL!, in which he directly speaks to Israel and its crimes.

“I’m never going to be silent,” he told his Paris audience.

“We are going through the worst time in Palestinian history,” Bashar tells The New Arab. 

“But at the same time, this is a continuation of what has been happening [for many decades]. I've been looking at the music I wrote before [October 2023], and it applies to the before and the after.”

Palestinians are not just concepts

One of Bashar’s previous singles that is particularly poignant right now is his Arabic rendition of renowned American jazz artist and Civil Rights Movement activist Nina Simone’s I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free, Ya Reit.

He initially wrote and recorded the track in 2019 for Palestinian-British filmmaker Basil Khalil’s 2022 film, A Gaza Weekend.

In the film, a British journalist seeks refuge in Gaza after a virus is accidentally released from an Israeli lab and the borders are closed. Ya Reit is the closing song on the film’s soundtrack.

Bashar wants people to remember that Palestinians are not just a concept; beyond being a nation of people who have been so highly politicised, they are also humans who fall in love, feel under pressure to get married, or struggle to conform to society’s expectations of what it means to be a man or have a successful career.

“I'm Palestinian and there are many layers to that,” he says. “There's the political reality, but there's also the human reality of what it means to be Palestinian, and I want to remind people that we're just human and we have regular fears, dreams and passions, just like everyone else.”

Bashar has always been vocal about the intersection of gender, queerness and the Palestinian experience, challenging patriarchal norms via his music.

In the past, Israel has been criticised for its history of pinkwashing its crimes in Palestine, and this hasn’t escaped its notice.

Soon after Israel began its war on Gaza, a photo of an Israeli soldier in Gaza holding a Pride flag with the words, “In the name of love”, went viral.

But Bashar says the international queer community are waking up to the Israeli government’s propaganda.

“In the past two years, there has been a radical increase in awareness all over the world, especially in the queer community, about how Israel is using the queer community and the queer struggle to justify occupation, apartheid and genocide,” he says.

“A lot of people will say these two things aren't related and that we shouldn't bring the queer community into it, but it's too late because Israel brought the queer community into this. Now, all over the world, we are seeing queer artists waking up and saying no, this is not going to happen in our name.” 

Bashar Murad will be performing at Camp Bestival in Dorset on Friday, 1 August 2025. Tickets can be purchased here

[Cover photo: Photography by @lidiarav_] 

Yousra Samir Imran is a British Egyptian writer and author based in Yorkshire. She is the author of Hijab and Red Lipstick, published by Hashtag Press

Follow her on X: @UNDERYOURABAYA