BONO HAS DEFENDED accepting a Presidential Medal of Freedom from former US President Joe Biden at the beginning of the year.

Bono was one of 19 people awarded the medal in January, alongside former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and soccer player Lionel Messi. At the time, Bono received backlash for accepting the award due to the United States’ support of Israel’s war in Gaza.

Speaking today to Brendan O’Connor on RTÉ Radio One, Bono said in reply to a question on whether he thought accepting the award was the wrong decision, “Being a conscientious objector with somebody else’s conscience is quite a stretch.”

He said that he has worked with Biden for 25 years, during and prior to his presidency, on issues such as increasing aid flows, universal access to antiretroviral drugs, and the 1990s Drop the Debt campaign, which petitioned for international debt cancellation. 

“This is a man who I have deep respect for and a real relationship with.”

Bono went on to say that there are “other aspects” to the criticism he received “which are just inaccurate, and just people just not understand that these bills [providing for the supply of armaments for Israel] were bound up in Ukraine’s defence.”

In April last year, Biden announced an aid package worth $95 billion that would arm Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. 

The bulk of the military aid – $60.8 billion – was destined for Ukraine. However, in announcing the package, Biden said that he wanted to reiterate his “ironclad” support for Israel. 

“In fact, there was an attempt to decouple them, but Biden knew he wouldn’t get it through Congress,” Bono continued. “These are complex affairs, and look, I should be flattered, and I am grateful that people expect such a lot of me, but I’ve been doing this for 25 years, and anyone who thinks I’m not shocked and appalled by what’s going on in Gaza, and the children of Gaza…

“It’s such a strange thing, this competitive empathy that’s going around: ‘I feel this wound more than you, and my emergency is more important than your emergency’.”

Speaking of his experience around politicians, Bono concluded, “I kind of get the realpolitik of and the situation that Joe Biden found himself in, and so, I took that medal on behalf of all those people who don’t get medals, the activists, the people are getting killed now in Gaza.”