“We will shoot rockets at our enemies, live Palestine and crush Zionism”.
So goes part of the lyrics to a Swedish song from the 70s, which has been criticized for being anti-Semitic.
A snippet of the song’s chorus accompanied a video showing a pro-Palestinian demonstration at Sergels Torg in Stockholm, which was uploaded to Tiktok on October 22, 2023.
Three weeks after this publication, the song has been used in over 60,000 videos on Tiktok, despite all the text being in Swedish.
“Made to be a fight song”
The videos that used the song show pro-Palestinian demonstrations in different cities, in different countries, Palestinian flags and AI-generated images of clenched fists.
– It is the Swedish prog movement’s slightly exoticized idea of what Arabic music sounds like. This particular one was made to be a demonstration song, a fight song at demonstrations, says Per Andersson, editor at Kulturnyheterna.
Googling: “Live Palestine English lyrics”
It is likely not only Swedish Tiktok accounts that are behind the song’s viral spread.
After October 22, one can see a sharp increase in Google searches for the term “Live Palestine”, mainly in countries such as Lebanon and Tunisia. Search terms such as “Leve Palestina English lyrics” and “Leve Palestina song” have been used.
On Youtube, the song has been published several times over the years, and in recent weeks the comment fields have been filled with comments.
“What song. Even if I don’t understand it, I feel it,” writes one user, followed by Palestinian flag emojis.
But what is the background to the criticized and controversial pro-Palestinian song, which now appears in tens of thousands of videos on Tiktok?
Watch our review in the video above.