GENE SIMMONS Weighs In On Student Protests Against Israel: 'It's Well Intentioned' But 'They're Not Informed'

In a new interview with Erin Molan of Sky News Australia, KISS bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons — born Chaim Witz in Haifa, Israel to Hungarian-Jewish immigrants — spoke about the war between Israel and Hamas which erupted nearly a year ago after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET):  "Above and beyond, whether you're Hamas or Israel or Gaza or Arabs or Iran or everything else, the one thing you have to agree on is that there are innocents on all sides. A child is a child that has no idea what Hebrew or Arabic or English or anything means. They're just innocent. They're born.

"I am a firm believer in generational cures," he continued. "Not too long ago, and some of my best friends, business associates, are Germans whose mothers and fathers and grandfathers were incinerating my people in gas chambers and killing them. It's generational. Just seeing different ways that people live can open up the next generation asking questions like, 'Why can't I do that?'"

Asked about the student protests over the Israel-Hamas war which have popped up at many college campuses after being inspired by demonstrators at Columbia University, Gene said: "I think it's well intentioned. I really do. They're not informed. I'm fully supportive, first one in line, of trans rights, gay rights, any and all variations of the hundreds of variations that people define themselves and all that kind of stuff. But don't kid yourself, if any one of them was in any country in the Middle East, they would be thrown off buildings or stoned to death. I think you're carrying the wrong flag, but I fully respect and support your right to do so in a democracy."

Simmons was born in August 1949, at Rambam Hospital in Haifa to Jewish immigrants from Hungary. He was the son of Holocaust survivor Flora Klein and a father, Feri Witz, who soon abandoned his family, leaving them penniless prior to emigrating to America in search of a better life.

Simmons's mother died in December 2018 in the United States at age 93. She survived living in a ghetto in Budapest and three Nazi concentration camps.

"When I was growing up, my mother hardly ever talked to me about Nazi Germany and the concentration camps because she didn't want to upset me, and I hardly ever asked her about it," Simmons told The Jerusalem Post over a decade ago. "But over the years, I started to learn more about it and about how my entire family was killed and how my mother saw her mother go with her grandmother to the gas chambers."

Even though he hadn't returned to Israel until 2011, Simmons had always been an ardent supporter of the country, including sending a televised message to an IDF soldier (and KISS fan) wounded during the 2006 war with Hezbollah, in which he called the soldier a "hero."