Craig David’s manager condemns ‘deafening silence’ of music industry on Hamas

A senior music manager in London has described the “deafening silence” of artists and entertainment industry commentators in the wake of Hamas’s horrific terrorist attack in Israel last week.

Colin Lester, who manages stars such as Craig David, explained how many artists were privately shocked and outraged in private, but were scared to speak out publicly against Hamas for fear of conflating – or being seen to conflate the Palestinian terrorists with the general Palestinian population.

Lester, 63, is an advisory board member of Creative Community for Peace (CCfP), which works with artists to educate them on antisemitism and the situation in the Middle East, promoting the arts as a bridge to peace, so has regular conversations with British and US musicians in this capacity.

“I am disappointed how many UK artists have failed to support Israel on this act of human genocide on it’s citizens,” he said on Friday, speaking to Jewish News. “I’ve spoken to various artists who are confused by the region politics in Gazza and it’s deeper than they just don’t want to post about it. A lot of them are very frightened.”

He said that, based on his private conversations in recent days, artists “do not want to publicly condemn terrorist group Hamas for fear of it being viewed as condemnation of the entire Palestinian population and their plight. They are also in fear of being publicly condemned and threatened by BDS activists  [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] and such”.  There needs to be an education process not just for artists but  for people who don’t have a realistic understanding of the complicity in this region.

Lester, who also raises money for Holocaust charity ‘The 45 Society,’ said there was “a lot of confusion between the Palestinian people, many of whom want peace with Israel – and Hamas terrorists, who are currently the ruling body in Gaza”, adding that this is something that the CCFP works very hard to explain to artists and creatives who work in the Middle East, including Gaza.

He said they “feel it’s very difficult for them to speak out in favour of one side without people thinking they’re prejudice and speaking against the other”.

The CCfP board this week called on the entertainment community “to speak out forcefully against Hamas, to support Israel, to refrain from sharing misinformation about the war, and do whatever is in their power to urge the terrorist organisation to return the innocent hostages to their families”.

Asked if he felt that music industry stars were refraining for personal or professional reasons, Lester said he felt that it was more for personal reasons and less to do with worries that comments may affect their sales and popularity.

“It’s true that a lot of artists and industry individuals sympathise with the Palestinian cause and don’t want to be seen to be ‘deserting’ the Palestinian people” by criticising Hamas, said Lester, who was awarded an OBE in 2020. The truth is we all want to see peace in the region, but not under the rule of terrorism.

“I think it’s about education. With the Manchester Arena or Bataclan [theatre] attacks, they felt it was straight-forward to show sympathy, but with this, they feel that they’d be seen to be condemning all Palestinians.”

Asked if any artists had spoken out against Hamas, Lester said there were “a lot of electronic dance music (EDM) DJs and artists who’d come out in support of Israel”, where many of them had played.

The Supernova Sukkot party at Kibutz Re’im, where 260 young Israelis were killed and dozens of others were taken hostage, was an open-air psychedelic trance festival – “the kind of event where their music would have been played at… that side of the industry has come out in great support”.

On the whole, however, Lester said “UK artists had been very slow to come forward to condemn these unthinkable terrorists acts, especially those whose lives are spent posting commentaries and their views about every public outrage – they’re silent… and it’s absolutely deafening”.