October 7 could have broken us — but it made us stronger
Jewish Telegraph, December 2024
BOY BAND as1one want to prove that they are more than just a gimmick — and let their music do the talking.
The six members — Palestinian Christian Aseel Farah, Bedouin Muslim Sadik Abu Dogosh, and Israeli Jews Nadav Philips, Neta Rozenblat, Niv Lin and Ohad Attia — are billed as the world’s first Israeli-Palestinian boy band.
Ken Levitan, who signed Kings of Leon, and James Diener, who developed Maroon 5, held a search for talent in Israel, which resulted in 1,000 hopefuls being whittled down to 20 who attended a boot camp in Neve Shalom — before the final six were chosen.
Paramount+ documentary as1one: The Israeli-Palestinian Pop Music Journey follows the creation of the band and their subsequent move to America.
Nadav, the first to send an audition video, said there was incredible tension in the months after boot camp as they waited to find out if they had made the cut.
“You can see in the show just how bad we felt waiting for this moment.”
The six boys flew to London in August 2023 to record All Eyes on Us with the legendary Nile Rodgers at Abbey Road Studios.
They then headed to Los Angeles arriving on October 6, 2003 — where the time difference was 10 hours behind Israel.
The cameras capture their shock, tears and anger as news reaches them of the Hamas attack back home.
“We agreed to focus on music and not talk about politics as much, so we can get through it together,” 22-year-old Neta told me.
“Today we’re a lot better at that. We’re really open about the dialogue, but that was a hard time, as it is probably evident in the series.”
Aseel added: “Many things made us stronger. We are an Israeli-Palestinian band since we started. It was never the headline of us to be about the Israeli-Palestine conflict.
“We always worry about the music. We come from different backgrounds, and it’s just fun to show how music brings people from different backgrounds together.
“The conflict has divided so many people around the world, and when it happened, we were all emotional, but it gave us an opportunity to show each other who we are as humans because humans have individuality, and it’s fun to show it to the world at this point.”
The emotions are strong when 23-year-old Niv discovers that one of his best friends was murdered at the Nova music festival.
He said: “To wake up to get that horrible news that you lost your friend, and to get that amazing hug from a Palestinian friend. That’s who we are as a band, and that’s what we try to show the world — we are humans, we’re not robots. We love each other, we have emotions, we have empathy for each other, and that’s what we’re doing here.
“And I’m happy they captured it and put it in the series to show the world that even though the world is divided we can be Israeli and Palestinians together.”
Nadav, 23, revealed that before auditioning for as1one, he had never interacted with Palestinians.
“As someone who came from a place that is not that open, now that I am open to the idea and you just understand that people are people, and as Aseel always says, we’re all humans,” he said.
“And it’s very bad to hold those bad thoughts about someone who you don’t really know. I would suggest for people to just be open, to listen and to welcome other people . . . and love people and share love.”
Neta told me the group’s end goal is for the focus to be on music and not their backgrounds.
“As Israelis and Palestinians, it’s really easy to tokenise us, and we didn’t want that,” he said.
“The filming of the documentary started before the war, but it’s such a current event that it’s really important to show that, but we don’t want to ignore the fact that we’re Israelis and Palestinians.
“We want to show the world where we’re from, what we stand for, what it means to be together at a time like this.
“But we hope to go back to that original plan in which it’s like, look, we’re Israeli and Palestinian, we co-exist, and we don’t talk about it every day.
“This morning, when I walked into the room, I saw Aseel. I didn’t think, ‘Oh, that’s a Palestinian’. I thought, ‘hey, there’s my friend Aseel’.
“We want people to see us as six musicians, as a pop group, and as, hopefully, your favourite band.”
Nadav added that the docu-series shows how frustrated they are at the situation because “we really didn’t want to be the ambassadors . . . we’re happy to to show the world how it could look, but we’re not politicians.
“We don’t sometimes know how to deal with situations like this.”
He added that after October 7 “it was so intense that we just forgot the cameras were there.
“We were so in our world and so invested in everything that was happening back in our homes.”
Just days after October 7, the boys were invited to perform at a fundraiser for Israel. The docu-series doesn’t make it clear that the invitation was turned down.
Aseel, 22, explained: “We had a lot of conversations with the team about it.
“This was a sudden invite by people who we met. And for me, when I saw that, I’m like, but the band is an Israeli-Palestinian band, it’s not an Israeli band.
“The band represents peace and how we want to work together to make music. In the end, this is what the focus is, to make music.
“ I never wanted to focus on politics. I never wanted to focus on the conflict. We don’t have a solution for the conflict, so why would we go into the conflict very hard, and if we had to do a fundraiser for any side, we have to do to the other side too, because both are suffering.
“They both have two sides. They both have pain behind them.”
He added: “So don’t expect me to support anything Israeli since I’m not asking them to support anything Palestinian.
“And this is where the team understood, and the guys understood, we all came to an agreement that if these things will happen, we have to do both sides, or we just have to continue on the side of more humanity.”
Within days of October 7, the boys had written Stop the World to share how they felt about the situation.
Neta explained: “We came to studio with the intention to bring up references of like Dua Lipa or Michael Jackson or other pop groups throughout the years. There was a big intention at first of writing an upbeat pop song in the days leading up to the session.
“But then, with the events that unfolded, we couldn’t do anything like that. We couldn’t be happy at a time like this.
“There were so many emotions within the group, tension between us and stuff going on back home. We were worried for our families and stuff like that.
“Those emotions only had one outlet, and that was in a song. That’s how Stop the World was born to represent that inner turmoil.”
Niv, who is seen in the docu-series making a shrine to a soldier friend killed in the conflict, added: “It’s a very powerful song.
“October 9 was the first time in the studio, and we brought so much emotion and sadness. I lost close friends.
“We didn’t know what to do, whether to go back home or stay. It was a very confusing time, but in the end, it got us stronger, and we learned so much from that.”
Recording the song was also emotional for Aseel.
He told me: “There’s a scene where you see me and Nadav speaking about the conflict and about what’s happening.
“And after that, I tear up. And this was at the second session of Stop the World. They lost friends, I was feeling sad and emotional about the kids and the people in Gaza and the West Bank and my family.
“There was also friction between us in the band, and this is what producers Stephen Kirk and Jenna Andrews saw. They saw it in real time. And they felt what we were trying to say.
“Instead of just us saying it as words, they saw it, and they absorbed what we had as emotions, as things between us. The friction between us made a spark, and that spark came to be Stop the World.”
Ohad praised their parents for the support they’ve been given.
“They want the best for us and they know this is our dream, to be musicians and to be in a boy band.
“They visit us a lot, and they always stay tuned about what’s happened, ask a lot of questions, and want to be involved. So we’re very lucky to have our family with us in this journey”
Sadik, the quiet member of the group, explained that his Bedouin community, does not engage much with political matters.
The 21-year-old added: “It’s not that different from Palestinians. We’re closer to the Palestinian culture because we’re Arabs.”
Let’s leave the last word to Aseel.
“It’s beautiful to see that, since the beginning, the focus was on music,” he said. “This is why, also at boot camp, we were focused on music, no matter the different backgrounds.
“As you saw in the documentary, we were in Neve Shalom, an oasis of peace. This small village is a mixed village of Jews and Palestinians, and it’s one of the very few villages, probably the only one, that co-exists.
“They go to the same school, they have the same workplace . . . and this is something we wanted to do from the beginning, from boot camp until the end of as1one, till the end of us. We want to stay together.”
The singles Stranger and All Eyes On Us are currently available, while they will release a debut EP in January.
