I’ll be honest. Graceland by Paul Simon is one of my favorite albums of all time. I’ve played it on repeat for years. It’s a masterpiece - musically, culturally, emotionally. But even the greatest artists can have moments that make you stop and wonder whether they’ve ever stepped outside the bubble they live in.
Because now Paul Simon, along with a handful of other celebrities who couldn’t find Judea and Samaria on a map, have decided that their big moral stand, their moment of conscience, their courageous act of activism… is advocating for the release of Marwan Barghouti.
Not the families shattered since October 7th.
Not the 251 men, women, and children dragged into Gaza abused, tortured, and held in darkness while the world scrolls past.
Nope. None of that stirred them.
But a convicted murderer with five life sentences?
That is where they finally choose to plant their flag.
Barghouti isn’t Mandela. He isn’t a symbol of peace. He isn’t a philosopher jailed for his ideas. He was convicted of orchestrating terror attacks that murdered innocent Israelis during the Second Intifada. Suicide bombings. Shootings. Cafés and buses turned into mass-casualty scenes. Families destroyed in an instant.
These are not abstract political “acts.”
These were names, lives.
And yet, in the strange moral universe of Western celebrity culture, elevating a man with this record is easier and apparently more fashionable than demanding the release of 251 innocent people who were kidnapped for the crime of being Israeli.
Where were their signatures on a petition for them?
Where was their celebrity outrage?
Where was the chorus of their voices saying, “Bring them home now”?
It never came.
Because demanding the release of Israeli hostages isn’t trendy. It doesn’t get applause in the rooms where these signatures come from. It’s not a cause that earns you points at the next award show or dinner party.
So instead, they find their voice for someone whose victims they’ve never bothered to learn about.
It’s cowardice dressed up as compassion.
And here’s the truth: Israelis don’t have the luxury of this delusion. We don’t get to romanticize terror from 6,000 miles away. We live with the consequences. We bury the dead. We wait for news about the missing. We face the reality these celebrities only talk about long enough to sign an online petition.
I still love Graceland. That won’t change. But loving an album doesn’t mean I have to pretend that its creator hasn’t lost his way. When Paul Simon finds the courage to speak out and chooses to speak for a convicted murderer instead of 251 innocent hostages it reveals a moral blindness that no melody can cover.
Peace is not built by rewriting history or romanticizing killers. Peace begins by acknowledging who the victims are and who made them victims.
If this is where these celebrities decide to plant their flag, then let them. Because while they perform morality from a safe distance, we in Israel will continue doing the only thing that ever mattered: standing for life, standing for truth, and standing for the people the world keeps forgetting.
And if that makes some people uncomfortable, good. It means the compass is finally pointing north again.