'Word soup': U2 statement on Gaza dismissed as ‘billionaire pacifism’

The massively popular Irish band U2's lengthy statement on Israel’s war on Gaza on Sunday has triggered widespread backlash on social media and has been dubbed “billionaire pacifism”.

In the statement, all four members of the band shared their individual views on Gaza, touching upon an array of issues such as Israel’s starvation of Gaza, the blocking of humanitarian aid and the potential military takeover of the enclave by Israel. 

The band’s statement starts with the phrase, “We are not experts in the politics of the region, but we want our audience to know where we each stand.”

Lead singer Bono’s (Paul David Hewson) own statement spans from “The rape, murder, and abduction of Israelis at the Nova music festival was evil” to “I also understood that Hamas are not the Palestinian people.” 

Bono's statement repeats Israel’s often-repeated "right to self-defence justification and echoes the same debunked claims Israel makes about Hamas using civilians as human shields. He also added that “Benjamin Netanyahu today deserves our categorical and unequivocal condemnation”, which many on social media have criticised as “word soup”.

U2's Gaza statement is billionaire pacifism, weeping into your champagne as you cash cheques from a genocide. Your 'moral clarity' stops where your wallet begins. Bono et al…until you ditch Live Nation and denounce your donors, you're just laundering blood money through a… https://t.co/13j4o7Yp25

— Mark Jones (@markjonescp) August 11, 2025
 

Others criticised U2’s statement for their opening claim that they are not “experts in the politics in the region”, though they made public statements about Ukraine and the Ukrainian people “for all of us who love freedom”, two months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Two years after a genocide in Gaza: “We are not experts in the politics of the region”

But two months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine 👇🏽 pic.twitter.com/POUcaq4IBa

— Osita Mba (@DrOsitaMba) August 11, 2025 

U2’s statement came on the same day Israel killed prominent Al Jazeera correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh in a drone strike on a press tent near al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. The strike also took the lives of Al Jazeera staff Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa, as well as freelance journalist Mohammed al-Khalidi.

After Bono’s statement, perhaps the one that received the most backlash was the statement by Larry Mullen Jr, the drummer of the band. 

He said that after the 7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel, Israel's response was expected. 

"After those attacks, the total obliteration of Hamas was called for by Israel and its allies and was expected."

Many on social media expressed outrage at these words, hinting that Israel’s war on Gaza started well before 7 October 2023. 

Larry you say what did Hamas expect? Well what did Isreal expect to happen after a blockade on Gaza since 2007? Where Isreal controls all land borders, the sky and the sea. Has bombed Gaza multiple times and murdered thousands since 2007 and Suffocates the life in Gaza!

— lu (@slammesh) August 10, 2025

Some on social media, uninterested in Mullen's statement on Gaza in general, expressed their confusion as to why he felt he had to share his thoughts on this issue. 

This was a general sentiment towards the entirety of the statement by many social media users, saying that the band, specifically Bono, was a "fraud" and has no issue staying “out of politics when it suits him”.

I could not give an absolute fuck what U2 have to say about Gaza. Those shills have been dripping in Israeli blood money since day dot.

Bono can "stay out of politics" when it suits him, while he's filling his pockets. He's a gutless poser and a fraud.

— Carlito's Way stan account 🇵🇸 (@Oh_Deer_Diner) August 11, 2025

This is not the first time Bono has come under scrutiny for what critics say is selective humanitarianism, with satirical comedy show South Park taking aim at him in More Crap, the 9th episode of season 11.

The Edge (David Howell Evans), lead guitarist of the band, criticised Netanyahu’s Likud party for its plan to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza and the occupied West Bank to make way for a “Greater Israel.” If the end game is this, “that is not peace-it is dispossession, ethnic cleansing, and, according to many legal scholars, colonial genocide,” he said.

Some on social media said that Mullen's statement was the only one openly and directly addressing Israel’s assaults on Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, which several countries, as well as many international rights groups and experts, now qualify as an act of genocide. Over 61,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the war started in October 2023, most of them women and children. 

Many also said that even though they grew up listening to the band, they would not follow or listen to their songs anymore, simply because they root for “war criminals and imperialism”.