The Israeli-Palestinian Rap Duo Fighting Against Extremism

For a part of the world long associated with extremes, extremism is making alarming strides on a daily basis in Israel. Its current government—the most right-wing in the country’s history—seeks to upend democratic norms and international agreements both domestically and in its relations with the Palestinians. A right-wing push for judicial reform that would drastically weaken Israel’s supreme court has led to a groundswell of opposition as hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens take to the streets week after week to try to defend their democracy. Simultaneously, in the West Bank (ruled not democratically but by a military occupation), the most extreme factions of Israel’s governing coalition fan the flames of an escalating cycle of violence, calling for the destruction of entire Palestinian villages associated with attacks on Israeli settlers, and taking steps to reverse diplomatic progress towards peace that the US State Department have called “provocative and counterproductive.”

These actions are linked: many of the police techniques that are now being used against Israeli citizens protesting in Tel Aviv have long been used in the West Bank, and many laws being proposed by the current government gut protections not only for Palestinians under military occupation but for women and minorities within Israel as well. Unfortunately, rather than recognizing their common situation, the younger generation of Israelis and Palestinians have grown up in an era of increased separation from one another and tend to be even more extreme—and distrustful of one another—than their parents. Against this backdrop, youth-driven Israeli-Palestinian movements like Standing Together are building power around the idea that Israelis’ and Palestinians’ fates are intertwined—and musical voices like DUGRI are making this idea go viral.

DUGRI, meaning “straight” in Arabic (in the context of speech, implying blunt honesty), is a joint Jewish-Arab social venture by two rappers, Uriya Rosenman (Jewish) and Sameh SAZ Zakout (Arab), who believe that straight-talking can create space for shared understanding rather than simply perpetuating conflict.

“We have had enough of political correctness and cancel culture,” Rosenman told me in our interview. “We look in the eyes and are authentic and admit the realities of the past.” It is this approach that led him and Zakout to team up on their first video, “Let’s talk straight | בוא נדבר דוגרי | تعال نحكي دغري,” which went viral during the spike in Israeli-Palestinian violence in May of 2021.

This artistic project, inspired by Joyner Lucas’s “I’m Not Racist” video, came out of three years of Rosenman’s travels across Israel, interviewing Jews and Arabs alike about their feelings and opinions about themselves, their peoples’ histories, and one another. He then teamed up with Zakout to write the lyrics and produce this first video, which amassed millions of organic views across platforms and gained local and global media coverage at an extremely polarizing time.

As Zakout recounted, “After the success of the first song, going viral, we got a lot of possibilities; we understood that we’re doing something special. Finally, there’s two young people being honest, saying stuff that people are actually saying.” The duo produced a second single, “Munfas,” which depicts the two artists tied back-to-back as if being held hostage.

“It looks like we’re going on a long journey,” Zakout spoke of their evolving relationship. “We’re starting to know each other step by step. Since 2021, we became the best two friends, colleagues, artists, and we saw that it looks like we’re going to do a social venture, trying to bring Jews and Arabs together, and creatively echoing a moderate new Israeli-Palestinian narrative.”

This new moderate narrative is critical, Rosenman explained: “It’s not a fight of Jews against Arabs, but of extremists who believe that life should be a certain way versus the moderates, who want to live and let live.” As political tides shift and reveal realities that had previously been hidden to many, new possibilities are emerging to recognize—and shape—the common destiny shared by Israelis and Palestinians. “Something is awakening now within the civilian movements, within the people. SAZ and I have different narratives, but we both share that kind of perspective.”

DUGRI is leaning into this moment not just on the ground in Israel, but also in the United States as part of a US tour, working to shape the narratives heard by Americans about what is happening—and what can happen—between Palestinians and Israelis. The duo is bringing their message to nearly a dozen cities from coast to coast through workshops that include multimedia, live performances, and straight-talking conversation. “I’ve done some tours as SAZ,” Zakout recalled of his solo career, “but this is my first tour as a duo. We’re in your face, we’re bringing something more serious to the table, and talking straight and people are digging us.” Rosenman agreed: “People look us in the eyes and let us know exactly what we did that inspired them; it’s not just ‘nice, peace, yeah.’ We don’t offer solutions, rather an approach. People get an excitement about what we’re doing about the future—the younger generation breaking free from the patterns of our parents and broken leaderships.”

In an era of increasing polarization around the world, rapping about moderation may seem like a non-starter for galvanizing the younger generation. But Rosenman disagrees: “When I say ‘moderation’ in my shows, and look in the eyes of the people, they get me. Something about our Israeliness and Palestinianness goes through our faces. It’s ‘Live and let live, motherfuckers.’ They see what we mean.”

DUGRI is on tour in the US through April 3rd.