Music legend and superstar, Madonna, performed for thousands of fans in Israel on Thursday in a much anticipated “peace concert,” as part of her world tour.

“I chose to start my world tour in Israel for a very specific and important reason,” Madonna told the roaring crowd in the Ramat Gan Stadium.

“You can’t be a fan of mine and not want peace in the world, we all bleed the same colour,” she said.

While the tickets have long been sold-out, Madonna granted “peace activists” 600 free tickets and met with members of the extreme Left leaning organization of Peace Now on the eve of the concert.

According to the director of Peace Now, Yariv Openheimer, the music superstar told the activists she would “say much more than a word about it (peace)”.

A series of carefully leaked rehearsal images posted to her official Facebook page shows Modonna posing with a pistol, while her backing dancers hold machine guns.

The images have been reported to be a probable reference to the Israeli Defense Force.

Further images also showed dancers wearing gas masks in scenes likely to conjure memories of the 1991 Gulf War.

“If we can all rise above our egos and our titles and the names of our countries and our religions, and treat everyone around us with dignity and respect, then we are on the road to peace. If there is peace here in the Middle East, there can be peace in the whole world,” she said.

The one-night-only concert is said to have brought 4,000 tourists to Israel, with fans paying up to NIS 5,000 to attend the show.

While it is admirable that Madonna did not heed calls to boycott Israel and did proceed with her performance, the self-proclaimed activists of Peace Now do not foster an environment of peace, but hinder and detract from the very ideals they seek to uphold. 

The group, which is funded almost entirely by foreign governments, adamantly opposes any Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria, has been advocated for a divided Jerusalem, and, essentially, wants to strip Israel of any inherently Jewish character.