Mohammed Assaf first entered the spotlight following his time on the second season of Arab Idol. As the winner of the competition, Assaf shot to popularity among the Arab diaspora, and especially among his fellow Palestinians in the West Bank.
Assaf was born in Libya to Palestinian parents before moving to Gaza when he was four years old. Growing up in the Khan Younis refugee camp near the Gaza strip gave Assaf first-hand, lived experience of the struggle of Palestinians. Before his time on Arab Idol, Assaf was briefly detained by the Hamas party’s security forces over 20 different times in an effort to stop him from spreading his music. Assaf has suffered from numerous attempts to suppress his music. However, these repeated attempts to silence him have not succeeded in suppressing Palestinians’ love for him.
In 2013, Assaf was awarded the title of Goodwill Ambassador for peace by The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). During this time he was also named the ambassador of arts and culture by the Palestinian government.
Assaf notes that he struggles to completely separate political sentiments of the Palestinian struggle from his music: “I can’t differentiate between my art and my patriotic attitude.” Since his time on Arab Idol, the star’s music has focused on themes such as the Nakba, the Palestinian homeland, the intifada, and the general pain and loss that is felt by every Palestinian the world over. Through his performances of well-known Arabic songs and patriotic hymns, Assaf has united Palestinians across the world and only strengthened the value of Palestinian culture in their fight for freedom.
His popularity is clear throughout the West Bank and the Gaza strip as large posters of the star appear on numerous shops and windows across the area. Even if at first listen to Assaf’s music it may not seem so, this artist is greatly positioned within the Palestinians’ fight through the arts. Assaf is a symbol of pan-Arab unity, and a cultural glue holding together Palestinians’ sense of identity and collectivism.
As a valuable cultural ambassador within the struggle for Palestinian freedom, Mohammed Assaf’s work and public image are under attack, but the admiration of the artist from the Arab diaspora is just as unfaltering.
