Following the brutal and bloody Hamas raid on Israel that left at least 1400 Israelis dead, many wounded, and hundreds hostage in Gaza, the Israeli Air Force and artillery units have been pounding suspected Hamas strong points, rocket launch sites, and weapon storage hubs in the Gaza Strip as Israeli ground forces prep for a sure to be a difficult and bloody invasion.
Meanwhile, those troops have needed a pump up anthem to get ready for the concrete hell of Gaza, and so have taken to use “We’re Not Gonna Take It,” sung by rock legend Dee Snider’s “Twisted Sisters” band. Snider, for his part, has taken a somewhat different line from many entertainers, who are on the woke track and so are anti-Israel, and jumped all aboard both that use of his song and Israel’s display of overwhelming force in Gaza.
Speaking to TMZ on the matter, Snider said, “People saying that, ‘Oh, the response is gonna be too intense for what happened.’ Well, you don’t get to decide on the response when you do heinous things to civilians. You don’t get to say, ‘Oh, that’s enough, that’s enough retaliation.’”
Continuing, Snider said, “No, it doesn’t work like that. When you cross that line, you’re burning people, you’re slaughtering people, you’re raping people, you’re just killing people after what happened at that festival, you don’t get to say, ‘Okay, your revenge can be this much.’ No. Payback’s a mothereffer. And I come from that school. You cross that line, you know… Shit’s gonna happen.”
Further, Snider added that he likes it when the military and teachers use the song, saying, “I’m blessed that I get to live my dream because we have people who volunteer to protect our country, protect their countries, and when I hear that they’ve used my song, the song they’ve allowed me to write, because they defended our freedom, I say, louder and prouder. Sing it out, boys.” Then, when specifically asked to clarify if he is okay with the IDF using the song as a battle cry, Snider said: “Oh, hell yeah.”
Speaking about how the song is a rallying cry for the right and left in their battles against censorship, something he thinks is “beautiful,” Snider added, “I wrote a song 40 years ago that I had no idea was gonna become this folk song for the ages. But it was by design that I wrote it so anybody could put their situation into it. So I’ve never stopped people from using it because that’s censorship, and I fought against censorship in the ’80s. It’s designed for people to use it as their battle cry. And I’ve got ’em on the left using it, I’ve got the right using it, I’ve got sporting events using it, I’ve got kids using it. So that’s beautiful.”
Watch Snider talk to TMZ about the song and its use here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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