It’s been a rough couple of weeks for Ed Sheeran.
Embarking on a new world tour – the previous one netted nearly a billion dollars – the red-headed crooner invited a few lesser lights to warm up his massive crowds. One of them, a self-described rapper named Macklemore, used his brief time on stage not to sing but to rant about Israel committing genocide and rave about freeing Palestine.
Ticket holders who paid good money to be entertained, not lectured by an imbecile, were furious, and venues soon threatened to drop the tour altogether if Macklemore remained on the ticket.
With a crisis on his hands, Sheeran sprung into action, and… blamed the whole mess on someone else.
“Macklemore coming off tour was the promoter’s decision, it was not mine,” he wrote. “Macklemore’s contract for the tour was with the promoter, not me.”
But hey! Don’t make Ed out to be the bad guy! “I have always used my platform and music to bring people from all backgrounds and cultures together and this won’t ever change,” Sheeran’s statement continued. “Those who have been to one of my shows will know that they are about unity, joy, escapism, love, and a place for everyone to feel welcome.”
Give us a break.
Anyone paying even a little attention to Macklemore these last three years ought to have realised there was very little joy or love in his heart when it came to the Jews. He wrote a song, “Hind’s Hall,” dedicated to supporting the American college students who, in the aftermath of October 7, launched the Tentifadah, taking over their quads in support of Hamas and Hezbollah. And lest anyone think he was merely criticising the policies of the government in Jerusalem, he put on a grotesque wig, a fake busy beard, and a comically large prosthetic nose, and pranced around on stage in a spectacle that would’ve tickled Goebbels pink.
Sadly, Macklemore wasn’t the only one of Sheeran’s opening acts to spend more time carping about the Jews than writing good music. The artist known simply as Finneas – and who had since quit the tour as well in solidarity with Macklemore – famously showed up to the Oscars in 2024 wearing a pin shaped like a red hand, a pro-Palestinian symbol inspired by a famous 2000 lynch in Ramallah in which a Palestinian mob beat two Israelis to death, displaying their blood-covered hands as a sign of their success.
Sheeran had every reason to know all that. Macklemore and Finneas were both open, vocal, and consistent with their constant vitriol. But Sheeran must have assumed that talk of unity simply no longer included the Jews, which is precisely the message you hear everywhere in our toxic culture industries these days, from book publishing to music to Hollywood. And like every other coward, he passed the buck at the first sign of trouble, hiding behind corporate-speak and platitudes.
We deserve better artists. Not only better than Macklemore – not a very hard bar to clear, that – but better than Sheeran, too, artists possessing not only talent but also souls big enough to understand that nothing true or beautiful ever grows out of mindless groupthink.
And we deserve more resolute Jewish leadership, too.
When news broke of Macklemore’s antics, Robert Kraft, one of the most prominent philanthropist in the American Jewish community and a truly righteous man, announced that the rapper wasn’t welcome in Gillette Stadium, which he owns and which was slated as one of the tour’s upcoming stops.
It was an act showing much backbone. But a few days later, Kraft was singing a different tune.
“I have dedicated much of my life to building bridges between all people,” Kraft wrote in a statement. “I believe deeply that all lives are worth protecting.” To that end, he continued, he had spoken to Sheeran and both decided to donate $2 million each to Palestinian causes.
“I’d like the people who are speaking in support of the Palestinian people to know that for decades, I have supported efforts that create opportunity for Palestinians,” the statement continued.
It’s hard to imagine a more soppy statement. It’s not only intellectually feeble – I doubt that Kraft really thinks that the lives of Hamas terrorists, say, are truly worth protecting – but also morally repugnant.
It was dispiriting to see a Jew who had worked hard and made good rush to apologise for banning someone like Macklemore from his venue. It was also completely and absolutely futile: A few days later, Sheeran took the stage in Philadelphia and delivered a sombre monologue, saying that “what is happening in Gaza is catastrophic and unjustifiable and disproportionate.”
Because, as Kraft ought to have known, “Palestine” is a cult of bullying and intimidation that’s interested in subjugation, not honest conversation.
Kraft had a golden opportunity to demonstrate real Jewish pride and strength. Instead, he shuddered and bowed down to the demonic logic of the left, in which a Jew must always prove his worth by pledging his allegiance to the very people eager to kill him. Even if Kraft’s millions don’t end up in the hands of some genocidal militant gang – an unlikely scenario given the corruption and oppression rampant across Palestinian society – his statement is a small victory to our worse enemies. If even a Jewish billionaire can’t stand up to rank bigots without caving at the first hint of a backlash, we’re in deep trouble.
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