In the words of Massive Attack, "The last thing Palestine needs is a pop song." But yet, the trip-hop duo has joined a line of artists, writers, charities and high-street brands to endorse the new single "Freedom for Palestine." Released this week, the music video for the single was also shown on repeat in between acts on the main stages at the Glastonbury festival, that faux radical event of the year.
Written and produced by Dave Randall (of Slovo/Faithless) after he visited the West Bank, "Freedom for Palestine" is a feel-good tune performed by some of Britain's most well-known pop stars and singers from around the world. It joins the chorus of Palestine solidarity manifestations that have become a must for any street-cred seeking politician, pop star, radical activist and middle-class purpose-seeker.
In fact today, in respectable Western circles, where you stand on Palestine and Israel has become a barometer of your moral worth. Being For Palestine and Against Israel has become a marker of being a good, conscientious person. And staking a claim in the Palestinian struggle has become a badge of honour. Going to the Palestinian territories to see the conflict up-close is seen as a risqué, self-sacrificing act, and it's something you can brag about at dinner parties or down the pub after returning home.
So, some take the high seas in the hope of becoming part of a media spectacle and others go native, moving in with families in the West Bank and acting as 'human shields'. Others yet simply wear the trendy Palestinian scarf, the keffiyeh, or download cheesy singles.
The video for 'Freedom for Palestine' - in which a clip of a keffiyeh-donning breakdancer is superimposed over images of refugee camps, the separation wall and Palestinian children - is a clear expression of what the messy and complicated Palestine-Israel conflict has come to symbolise for liberal Westerners.
The conflict is seen in Star Wars-like terms as a battle between good and evil, where the Palestinians are cast as hapless, child-like victims and Israel is presented as a monolithic, uniquely evil state. In the imagination of the likes of OneWorld, which has produced 'Freedom for Palestine', this is a conflict that can't be solved by the parties affected by it, because they're too helpless and corrupt to get on with it. Instead, it requires the intervention of all the happy-clappy do-gooding and military might that the West can muster.
In fact, the pro-Palestine camp displays a curious blend of non-violence glorification and military thirst. Take the organisers of the Gaza-bound freedom flotilla for instance. On the one hand, they insist on a Gandhi-esque commitment to turning the other cheek, and have apparently pledged not to kick, hit, curse, throw objects or jump overboard if confronted by Israeli soldiers.
On the other hand, the flotilla-ists and their supporters have also rallied for NATO to send its troops in to Israel, and have insisted on labelling Israel as a criminal pariah state that must be disciplined by some of the West's most powerful institutions. For all the condemnation of Israel as a US-propped regime and the calls to 'free Palestine', the pro-Palestine camp's rhetoric is not all too different from George Bush's method of labelling certain countries 'rouge regimes' as a justification for bloody interventions.
In the 'Freedom for Palestine' video, Palestinians are shown smiling and giving the peace sign or stumbling aimlessly among rubble. Most of the Palestinians who feature in the video are young children. This is the dehumanising image that the pro-Palestine camp promotes: they regard Palestinians as innocent victims who need the mothering care and charity of outsiders.
So, for instance, one of OneWorld's endorsers, Alice Walker, the author of The Color Purple and one of the most high-profile crew members of the flotilla that is currently stuck in Greece, has talked about wanting to help 'the children of Palestine'. Her and other activists' focus on children is not simply a heart-tugging method to win sympathy for their cause. Instead, they also want to cast themselves in a parental role. They feel a responsibility and a desire to feed, protect, care for and sing to the Palestinians.
Undoubtedly, there are many Palestinians who welcome being kept under the global media spotlight as a way of pressuring Israel to ease the blockade on Gaza and to dismantle Jewish settlements in the West Bank. And the funds raised from the single will probably be welcomed by the recipients. Yet the simplistic, black-and-white narrative that campaigns such as 'Freedom for Palestine' perpetuate does Palestinians no good.
Not only does it obscure the complex facts on the ground, leading to more ignorance rather than awareness of the decades-long Middle East conflict, but it also increases tensions on the ground. As anti-Zionism becomes a default position and obsession in the West, relations on the ground become increasingly tense, with Israel's responses to being branded as a pariah increasingly defensive and unpredictable.
Freedom for Palestine may be a catchy tune, but its simplistic message doesn't chime well with the messy reality in the Middle East.