If you want to stay sweet with the cultural establishment, never say anything nice about Jews. That’s the sick lesson of the Boy George storm. The Culture Club legend has released a song in which he croons “I stand with the Jews” and defends the right of the Jewish state to push back against the armies of anti-Semites that dream of its destruction. And for that, for refusing to hate Jews, he’s been savaged and ostracised.
Most daringly of all, he refuses to bow to that falsest of false religions: the digital delirium that says Israel is committing genocide
It’s been an extraordinary spectacle. The song’s called “We Will Dance Again”. It upbraids the keffyeh-smothered cultural windbags who wang on about Israel’s “genocide” but never mention Hamas’s actually genocidal assault on the Jews of Southern Israel on 7 October.
“Young girls raped against trees / Murdered brutally / For the crime of dancing”, Boy George sings about the Nova music festival, in a doubtless fruitless effort to prick the consciences of the Gazaholics of the music industry.
He lampoons the Palestine flag-shaggers who throng plummy music festivals, “mouthing like sheep” some anti-Israel “propaganda” they saw on TikTok. Most daringly of all, he refuses to bow to that falsest of false religions: the digital delirium that says Israel is committing genocide. “You say genocide, I say war”, he sings. Finally there’s his refrain of solidarity with Jews, which grabs you precisely because it feels so despairingly rare: “If you’re ever confused, I stand with the Jews”, he sings.
