The Christmas Day death of iconic singer George Michael, 53 has shocked the world. Michael was known for his progressive stances on many issues and various charity causes. This is a short video excerpt of an interview conducted with him by BBC’s Hard Talk on the US-British war on Iraq and how that war is linked to Palestine.

HARD TALK – George Michael on Palestine and Iraq – 23/02/2003

DAVID FROST: But if we’re, if we’re talking about – as you were – about Tony Blair. I mean were he here, he would say yes we all hate war, yes lives will be lost in a war, but more Iraqi lives will be lost if Saddam can go on wreaking his havoc because he’s been responsible for the death of a million people, in various ways, Iran-Iraq war, Kuwait and all of that, and so he would say that war may be the lesser of two evils.

GEORGE MICHAEL: Well I, I, think that I would, I would totally understand that argument, but it doesn’t convince me and it doesn’t convince most of the world. It’s not that we don’t know of the atrocity, the atrocities that Saddam has committed. It’s not that we don’t know the world would be a better place without him, it’s that actually, one of the most frightening aspects of this for me is that one of the central issues is being, is being lessened, as it were, in the British media and American media – I’m sure – which is the importance of sorting out the problems in Palestine. Now there’s no question, it doesn’t matter whether we place, you know, the latest raid on Gaza way down in our political reporting over the last couple of weeks, you know for a fact that the Arab world is not seeing it with that little relevance right now. And I think that, I think if Tony Blair is so into spin, which I think he’s incredibly bad at by the way, but as a man who’s so into spin, he should understand that perception is everything, and the world-wide perception right now is that America is going to attack Saddam Hussein for oil and that Sharon is being left to his own business in Palestine – in Israel rather – and that that those two things show an absolute double standard which is very important to the Arab world.

(Source for text: BBC Breakfast with Frost)