Gene Simmons: 'Boycotting Israel is foolish'

Gene Simmons has suggested that artists who boycott performing in Israel are acting foolishly.

In the past year, artists including Carlos Santana, Elvis Costello, Roger Waters and The Pixies have all cancelled gigs in the country in protest of Israel's allegedly harsh treatment of Palestinians in Gaza.

Speaking to The AP, the Kiss singer, who was born in Haifa, claimed that those artists who decide to avoid coming to Israel don't fully understand the nature of the country's conflict with Palestinians.

"They're fools," Simmons said. "The countries they should be boycotting are the same countries that the populations are rebelling."

He continued: "People long to be free ... And they sure as hell don't want somebody who's a ruler who hasn't been elected by them."

Simmons is currently making his first trip to the country since moving with his family to the United States in 1957.

Despite spending most of his life in the US, the rocker insists that he has always felt out of place in his adopted homeland.

"I'm Israeli. I'm a stranger in America. I'm an outsider," he added. "I was born here and I'm proud of it."

Last fall, Academy Award-nominee Jon Voight branded as anti-Semitic a Time magazine article which questioned Israel's commitment to peace, while Elton John criticised artists boycotting the nation during a concert in Tel Aviv in June 2010.