This ‘Israeli-Palestinian’ Boyband Is Whitewashing Apartheid

In a 1998 article for the New Yorker, the artist Robert Irwin remarked on the dreamy, unreal nature of the air in Los Angeles – “the haze that fractures the light, scattering it in such a way that on many days the world has almost no shadows.” It’s a quality immediately apparent in “All Eyes On Us”, the debut video from Israeli-Palestinian boyband as1one: six flawlessly handsome men bathed in LA’s otherworldly glow, any darkness or imperfections airbrushed away. The complex politics of the band’s homeland are similarly glossed over, replaced by the same supremely confident but largely nebulous statements of intent you’d expect from any other box-fresh pop act. “We’re gonna dance like we’re all on a mission,” they croon. It’s only later that you find yourself wondering exactly what that mission entails.

Even in the softening haze of LA, as1one’s story is defined by shadows: the uncomfortable truths which keep creeping in at the edges, refusing to conform to the usual boyband tropes. Major label pop stars aren’t supposed to face questions about geopolitics and genocide in interviews about their first EP. For all of as1one’s efforts to bring the conversation back to the music, the darkness continues to intrude.

The six-piece band were first introduced to the world in September with the release of “All Eyes On Us” – a full EP and behind-the-scenes documentary series for Paramount+ are due for release in the next few weeks. The day after as1one landed in California to begin their first recording sessions, Hamas launched an attack on Israel that would trigger what the International Court of Justice has called “a plausible genocide.”

Set against the backdrop of Israel’s assault on Gaza and several of its regional neighbours, as1one’s photogenic brand of Israeli-Palestinian optimism has risked coming across as unthinkingly naive, or more deliberately cynical; online responses have ranged from sceptical to scandalised. The band’s representatives turned off replies to their first Twitter/X post, but one broadly representative quote tweet read: “Nothing about this group is organic or sincere. They were created by two rich American record execs … It’s a grift.” The mainstream music press, meanwhile, has largely accepted as1one’s narrative of unity through musical collaboration without question: “conversations now aren’t just about being the biggest band in the world,” reads a breathlessly enthusiastic Billboard cover story from November, “but about the Nobel Peace Prize.”

No stone unturned?

The concept behind as1one dates back to 2021 and the opening of Universal Music Group (UMG)’s first office in Tel Aviv, part of a long-term strategy to scout and develop untapped Israeli talent (the country has seen several breakthrough successes in recent years, notably producers Omar Fedi and Johnny Goldstein, whose early-2020s hits included “Mamacita” by the Black Eyed Peas and Lil Nas X’s “Montero”, as well as Eurovision contestant Noa Kirel).

In 2022, UMG partnered with US-based industry moguls James Diener and Ken Levitan, the brains behind Maroon 5 and Kings Of Leon, on a more specific project: to assemble the world’s first Israeli-Palestinian pop group, a “Middle East version of BTS” as Billboard described it. Diener and Levitan arrived in Israel that year, film crew in tow, and started auditioning singers, dancers, rappers and instrumentalists from across the country.

Their exhaustive search didn’t stretch to the West Bank or Gaza, however, which UMG put down to “logistical difficulties” – almost certainly a euphemism for Israel’s 17-year blockade on the strip and prohibitive border policies in the West Bank. “There are roughly 2 million Palestinian Arabs living in the state of Israel that would beg to differ with that premise,” Levitan told me brusquely via email when I asked whether this omission of the occupied and blockaded Palestinian territories undermined as1one’s claims of inclusivity. “We chose to focus on Israel, which is a pool of exceptional talent and a place with a mix of cultures and heritages,” added Diener. The daily experiences of Palestinian citizens of Israel, or the contested nature of “diversity” within a state founded on ethnonationalism, feel like they’ve been glossed over.

By the end of 2022, Diener and Levitan had found their six stars in the making: Sadik Dogosh and Aseel Farah, who are Palestinian citizens of Israel (Dogosh is a Muslim, Farah a Christian), and Ohad Attia, Niv Lin, Nadav Phillips and Neta Rozenblat, four Jewish Israelis (though Rozenblat was born and raised in the US). As per the usual boyband format, each member fits a general template – clean-cut, casually dressed in neutral tones, winningly earnest and almost impossibly hunky – while also bringing their own subtle twist. Lin is a songwriter and former Israeli X Factor contestant; Attia an accomplished guitarist; Farah a rapper and “self-professed introvert”. All six band members are between 20 and 22 years old.

Alongside the uptempo bangers, maudlin ballads, floppy fringes and rippling abs, UMG has also carefully positioned as1one as a symbol of hope and togetherness: it’s this, more than anything else, which has offended their detractors, who accuse them of burnishing Israel’s cultural reputation and sugarcoating the genocide unfolding in Gaza. By acting as broader ambassadors for unity, as1one are not only looking to emulate acts like K-pop megastars BTS but also projects like the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, an Israeli-Palestinian co-production founded in 1999 by the Argentine-Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim and the Palestinian-American writer Edward Said. “It’s not going to bring peace,” Barenboim told the Guardian in 2008. Instead, he explained, the orchestra lets both sides “get to know the other, to understand what the other thinks and feels, without necessarily agreeing with it… [to] breathe the music the same way.”

Speaking to as1one on Zoom as they clustered around a sofa in UMG’s headquarters, at least one aspect of their story was revealed to be entirely free of artifice: the band members genuinely believe that pop music can heal the world. “It’s an amazing idea,” said Philips, “to show the world that Palestinians and Israelis can coexist through music, because it’s the one language we all share.”

In another recent interview, Dogosh had mentioned that he doesn’t want younger generations “growing up as we did”. When I asked him what he meant by this, he alighted on the same utopian themes as his fellow band members – optimistic to the point of naivety, perhaps, but undeniably heartfelt. “There’s a lot of pressure on kids to grow up a certain way,” he explained. “We want to share more unity, more acceptance between us: not only between Jews and Arabs but between all kinds of people.”

And yet even here, the LA sun casting a soft glow over the band as they expressed hope for a better future, something uneasy continued to stir. I spoke to them on the morning of 6 November, moments after they’d woken up to news of Donald Trump’s re-election. “We don’t really know,” said Attia, in what felt like a carefully rehearsed response to my question about the result. “We’re not Americans, in the end. We’re just Israelis and Palestinians, and we’re here to make music.”

This was not the first time that unexpected events have cut across as1one’s dreams of pop stardom. With truly uncanny timing, Diener and Levitan flew the band members to LA to begin recording sessions on 6 October 2023, a little over 24 hours before Hamas’ assault on Israel began. “We got an alert that there were bombs going off,” said Lin, “but we’re used to it, it’s not something that surprised us. And then I opened Instagram, and saw the videos.”

A few days later, Lin found out that the woman he’d recently started dating was among those murdered at the Nova music festival. Several other band members have also lost loved ones. Both they and Levitan admitted to me that they considered calling it quits during that period.

“Seeing my friend having all of these emotions, all I could do was just stay next to him, tell him that it’s going to be okay, and we’re here for him,” said Farah of supporting Lin through his grief in the aftermath of 7 October. “But it was hard for me to feel, hard for me to see it … after things would calm down, I would go down to my room and be thinking, what’s happening in Gaza and the West Bank? … I was seeing what was happening, and feeling afraid and unsure about what will happen to me, as a Palestinian living in Israel.” As Farah spoke, clearly struggling with the weight of these questions, I noticed both Attia and Phillips putting their hands on his shoulder in an instinctive show of support and affection.

It became increasingly clear over the course of our interview that as1one aren’t your stereotypical pop himbos or fame-hungry cynics, but articulate, empathetic and politically engaged. I was surprised by the extent to which they were willing to grapple with challenging questions about their identity and life experiences; even where their perspectives diverged, they clearly had enough trust and understanding as a group to sit with those inconsistencies. Rozenblat and Philips spoke frankly about their mandatory service in the Israel Defense Forces, including the notions drilled into them of the army’s moral righteousness, and explained how their conversations with Dogosh and Farah have helped them understand why the violence experienced by Palestinians at the hands of the IDF creates a very different set of association. Lin – who grew up in Sapir, a remote Jewish-only hamlet in southern Israel – talked about never having had any Arab friends before joining the band, and how much his perspectives have since broadened.

There were also points where things felt more strained, perhaps inevitably given the impossible obligations on a band like as1one to present a unified and positive front, given what’s going on in Gaza, Lebanon and elsewhere. I got a general sense of what being Israeli or Palestinian means for different band members, and the feelings involved in navigating that as a group, but things became trickier when it came to political specifics. “People can do whatever they want,” said Attia, when I asked about the band’s opinion on the ongoing cultural boycott of Israel. “They can boycott or can have the organisations they want; we’re here to make music.” Rozenblat described the boycott as “staying ignorant” and urged people to “come to Israel, come see the West Bank, see the border with Gaza. Don’t distance yourself from that.” Farah, the only Palestinian voice in the room, adopted much the same line, though with noticeably less conviction. “People need a bit of escapism sometimes,” he said. “It’s really healthy emotionally and psychologically. It helped me deal with my trauma. This is what we want to focus on.”

The intensity and intractability of the conflict means that more overt friction within the group has been inevitable, and agreement impossible on some issues. One clip from their Paramount series sees Philips react to the news emerging from Israel by angrily insisting on expressing his emotions in Hebrew rather than English. It’s easy to understand why someone would default to their first language in a moment of pain and vulnerability, but this assertion of his identity – and by extension, the exclusion of those who don’t share it – feels pointed and confrontational. Lin has recently shared a stage with pop mega-producer Scooter Braun, a staunch supporter of the Israeli government who’s suggested that the death toll in Gaza is being exaggerated, at Braun’s harrowing and controversial memorial to the Nova music festival victims. But over the last year, and within their own six-person bubble, as1one have found some kind of peace. “In the end, we realised that we’re all feeling the same emotions,” said Farah. “I’m feeling like I’m losing my heart, they’re losing their heart … but somehow, since we were next to each other, and we had to talk about it, it fixed a lot of issues between us.” If the band has a purpose beyond simply topping the charts, they say, it’s to remind the rest of the world that this middle ground still exists.

Airbrushing the shadows.

As we spoke, I found myself rooting for these six eager, thoughtful and likeable guys far more than I was expecting – conscious that they’ve been forced to publicly navigate questions of immense political complexity, when all they wanted to do was sing pop songs – I found myself emotionally and ethically conflicted, pulled between the band’s personal charisma and the deeply uneasy gloss their story puts on the conflict, hoping despite prevailing evidence that their optimism isn’t in fact misplaced. Our conception of Israel is often defined by absence, after all: whether the absence of a Jewish homeland that motivated early Zionists, or the 5.9 million Palestinians Israel and its allies have expelled in the process of forcing itself into being. as1one’s unreal experience in LA, stuck on the other side of the world as their homeland changes beyond recognition, feels somehow in keeping with that theme. Perhaps viewing the situation from afar through the Californian haze with its shadows scrubbed away has enabled them to see something that’s eluded the rest of us.

But these questions are rarely that simple. Expand the frame beyond the personal experiences of six musicians in a label-funded Hollywood house share and the cracks begin to show. “Palestinians overwhelmingly oppose this type of normalisation,” said Samir Eskanda, a Palestine liberation activist, speaking to me on the phone – “this idea that if you produce an Israeli-Palestinian boyband, people are going to suddenly forget about Palestinian boys, girls, men and women being exterminated.” Eskanda underscored that he was using the word “exterminate” advisedly, citing the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor applying for arrest warrants targeting Netanyahu and other Israeli government figures on precisely those grounds, among other charges (the ICC has since issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and others).

Placing Israelis and Palestinians on any kind of even cultural footing, Eskanda argued, implicitly treats the occupation as acceptable, and undermines Palestinian calls for justice and freedom. “There can never be coexistence under oppression, only coercion,” he said, a principle which extends to the Palestinian members of the band.

For a project like as1one to fall outside the ongoing cultural boycott of Israel or the BDS movement’s anti-normalisation guidelines, said Eskanda, “it would have to be a project of co-resistance to oppression, rather than merely coexistence under oppression. And the Israeli side would have to recognise the comprehensive rights of Palestinians under international law, including the rights of refugees to return.”

Neither condition, to Eskanda’s mind, has been met. “Ethical coexistence only comes after the dismantling of Israel’s regime of settler colonialism and apartheid,” he continued, “otherwise it’s just a morally bankrupt and deceptive attempt to whitewash the structures of oppression.”

However much I may have fallen for as1one as individuals, Eskanda’s comments make it impossible to ignore the profound contradictions and underlying Zionist logic inherent to the band as a concept. When I spoke to Diener and Levitan via email, looking for a broader sense of as1one’s political and industry context, this sense of dissonance merely grew.

“This has always been about the music,” said Levitan emphatically, a theme returned to repeatedly when I asked about the risk of as1one’s music normalising the ongoing conflict, their lack of direct political statements, or whether they could act as cultural ambassadors for Israel in the future (for example at Eurovision, where Israel’s continued inclusion has been compared unfavourably to the swift expulsion of Russian artists following the invasion of Ukraine). “First and foremost, as1one is a pop group. The songs and material serve the band’s creative concept, which is pop music,” Diener insisted. “They are pop musicians, focused on making great pop songs.”

This doesn’t add up. If the music were their sole focus, why is as1one’s ethnicity constantly foregrounded? The tagline for their Paramount+ series is “an Israeli-Palestinian pop journey”, implying that their backstory is the most compelling thing about them. The band themselves are clearly politically aware, with the press release for their second single, Stranger, leaning heavily if euphemistically on “everything going on back home”. as1one’s story is entirely reliant on the vision of peaceful Israeli and Palestinian coexistence, with the concept of hasbara – the Israeli state’s use of popular culture to project a flattering picture to the rest of the world – essential to understanding their appeal. If these were six guys who’d lived their whole lives in LA, however talented and good-looking, they wouldn’t have received anything like the same attention.

Similarly, if their roots in the Israel-Palestine conflict are what makes as1one special – the “collective power of music” to break down barriers and “inspire new generations to do the same” as the promo materials for Stranger emphasise – then this can’t be switched on and off at will, or its colonialist implications wished away. It’s profoundly unsettling to watch executives scrambling to disown the narrative they’ve created the moment its implications become uncomfortable – not least because the band themselves have so clearly been forced to sit with those same contradictions on a personal level.

Of the five songs on as1one’s debut EP, one in particular grabs my attention – the mid-tempo electro-pop of “Stop The World”, its wistful synth lines overlaid with the ringing of unanswered phones and lyrics that seem to capture, perhaps inadvertently, the unresolved tensions at the heart of the band itself. “Look at the way we hold our pain / Yeah, we keep it like trophies,” they sing.

It’s a strange song, not in terms of the neat, label-approved arc of the band’s wild journey from obscurity to global stardom, but more deeply and profoundly eerie. I’m reminded of “My Teenage Dream Ended”, the bizarre semi-autobiographical album released in 2012 by Farrah Abraham, star of MTV reality show 16 And Pregnant. as1one’s music is infinitely more polished and listenable, but it embodies something similar, attempting to grapple with questions too big and too dark for the glossy simplicity of mainstream pop to take on. In trying and failing to airbrush out the shadows, as1one end up making them more unsettling.

“Take me home,” Rozenblat coos on the bridge of “Stop The World” before his bandmates join for the chorus, the music behind them surging upwards. “We’re not built for this,” they sing in perfect unison. “We’re built for more.” This kind of bland lyrical generality points to the darkness around as1one being once again smoothed away. But its ambiguity also feels unexpectedly – perhaps unwittingly – revealing.

What hope is being expressed here, what “more” is really being sought? Is this a reference to Israelis and Palestinians collectively transcending their experiences of colonialism and violence? Is it about the band achieving their own dreams of global pop stardom, or perhaps escaping from the restrictive expectations of the mass-market pop industry? as1one have clearly been built for something, and believe themselves capable of achieving it. What exactly that is, and whether or not their optimism is justified, remain elusive.