One small act inspired the frontman and vocalist of the heavy metal group Disturbed to declare at a concert last month: “We celebrate life. Hamas celebrates death.”
During a show in Orlando, Florida, on Feb. 26, David Draiman invited a girl to the stage, who handed him a package with a bracelet inscribed “Am Israeli Chai,” according to Fox News.
In a clip posted to X, Draiman is shown introducing Sophia, who says she is 9 years old.
Draiman opened the gifts, saying, “Oh that’s awesome” when he saw the pro-Israel bracelet.
After reading the text, he explained, “What that means is the nation of Israel lives and will endure.”
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WARNING: The following video contains vulgar language that some readers may find offensive.
From our show last night in Orlando.#FreeTheHostages #SaveGazaFromHamas#BringThemHome#BringThemHomeNow #Gaza #Israel #Hamas #Hamas_is_ISIS #NovaFestivalMassacre #Coexistence #AmYisraelChai pic.twitter.com/JQ8Pr6jOQO
— David Draiman 🟦🎗️🇮🇱✡️☮️ (@davidmdraiman) February 27, 2024
“You know, I’ve held back speaking about this. Now I cannot,” he said. “War is hell — in every sense of the word.”
Should more entertainment stars make a stand for Israel?
Draiman said he has more than 2,000 Israeli-based relatives.
“I miss people that were slaughtered like animals at the Nova Festival,” he said, referring to the music festival targeted by Hamas during the Oct. 7 massacre of Israelis. “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.’”
“Freedom fighters my f***ing a**. Rape is not resistance. Slaughtering innocents at a music festival that’s meant to bring together people of all walks of life is not resistance,” he said.
“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 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,” he said.
“It is dark time that we are 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 our own suffering,” he said.
“It’s dark times, my people. It is dark times, but sometimes darkness can show you the light,” he said.
In an interview with Breitbart, Draiman said Sophia, the girl who gave him the gifts, was standing by a barricade at the Orlando concert.
“She had this sign saying that she had these gifts, so I asked her what they were, and she took out this little satchel with two bracelets, one of them said my name and the other one said, ‘Am Yisrael Chai’ — ‘The nation of Israel lives and will endure,’” he said.
“I couldn’t not acknowledge her very precise, thoughtful gift without being insulting at that point, so I felt compelled to speak about it, and I just went completely off the cuff, speaking from my heart and trying to address the elephant in the room, so to speak,” he said.
“Look, there’s no doubt that the Palestinians have been under the physical and mental control of these brutal terrorists, and granted, it’s a regime that they ‘voted into power,’ they elected into power, and it arises from an ideology that stems from the Muslim Brotherhood itself,” he said.
Draiman said he is amazed that liberals support Hamas.
“You have people who are for every single liberal value in existence, yet all those values are the complete opposite of what the people in Hamas, and for the most part, the vast majority of Palestinians in general, would go ahead and get behind,” he said.
“None of the things that they supposedly hold dear are shared beliefs, and yet, somehow, they’ve been able to latch on to that ideology, and the hypocrisy and irony are just staggering,” he said.
