Hip hop group DAM, with Tamer Nafar in center (Facebook photo)

A Palestinian musician is blaming the U.S. and Israel for the fact that the Palestinians have not yet been able to send a man to the moon.

Tamer Nafar of the Arabic hip hop band DAM says the group’s latest album was inspired by the contrast between NASA’s space exploration and the digging of smuggling tunnels between Gaza and Egypt. He tells the pro-Palestinian website Electronic Intifada that the “occupation” and the U.S. are to blame for hindering Palestinian space exploration ambitions. He does not mention that Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005 and that Hamas – defined by the State Department as a terrorist organization – now controls Gaza, not an Israeli “occupation.”

In the interview, Nafar describes the inspiration for DAM’s new album Dabke on the Moon. Dabke or Debka is a traditional Arab line dance (Emphasis added):

Well, once I read an article about some NASA experiment on the moon, or in space, I don’t know, but they created some kind of a spaceship that goes to outer space to do something. And on the same day, I read an article about the people in Gaza digging tunnels. I didn’t feel comfortable with these two opposites. They are exploring the galaxies outside of Earth, and the Palestinians are digging tunnels — it’s the opposite direction.

Of course we want to go to the moon, but we cannot do it with the occupation. And who’s responsible for the occupation as well? America, the USA. They are sponsoring billions of dollars every year to make us dig under tunnels. I didn’t like it, and it was a sad song at the beginning. How come we are digging tunnels and they are reaching outer space?

Nafar also blames Arab dictators for restraining the purported Palestinian moonwalking dreams: