“We Are the World” for Palestine Runs into Trouble

When the megagroup calling itself USA for Africa recorded “We Are the World” in 1985, no one put out an opposition message. But a new international effort called “Freedom for Palestine” is having a little more trouble getting its message out.

Kickstarted by the British Palestine solidarity movement with the support of the band Coldplay, the “Freedom for Palestine” video by artists calling themselves One World is on YouTube (at www.youtube.com/watch?v=V28HnPTYz-I). Along with clips of the “Freedom for Palestine” performers, it shows the terraced hillsides of the West Bank and the faces of Palestinians young and old; it shows the refugee camps that dot the land, and the 26-foot high “separation” wall that snakes through it; and it shows the graffiti that cover miles of the wall and that constitute a continuing act of nonviolent resistance to the Occupation and the Wall.

But when Coldplay listed the video’s URL on its Facebook page, Facebook received complaints that the song was “abusive”—and deleted the URL. YouTube, on the other hand, is blithely showing both “Freedom for Palestine” and an anti-Freedom for Palestine video that was put up two weeks after the original appeared on YouTube. Same song, different video: Viciously pro-Israel, it juxtaposes clips of children being educated as terrorists with shots of huge convoys of aid allegedly being sent from Israel to Gaza and images of a “prosperous marketplace in Gaza.”

It’s at www.youtube.com/watch?v=mphlU96qIyg, and its existence and placement on YouTube is a blatant act of intellectual property theft that violates YouTube’s most basic rules. Presumably when the theft is brought to YouTube’s attention, they’ll remove the counter video; meanwhile, we can help bring it to their attention—and support the real “Freedom for Palestine” video, including demanding that Facebook restore the URL.