Last week, a musician named Pink called on Ed Sheeran to remove fellow musician Ben Macklemore from his national tour. This week, Macklemore announced that Ed Sheeran had removed him from his tour—penning a powerful assessment of the situation. And throughout it all, Ed Sheeran has positioned himself as a neutral arbiter who doesn’t take sides. He just wants to make music, we’re told. The reality, however, could not be further from this claim. Indeed, this is not about a simple disagreement between prominent musicians. Instead, it speaks to a deep moral crisis in our world today. A contemporary litmus test of basic humanity that future generations will reflect upon and wonder, how could anyone have stood silent or claimed neutrality during a genocide? Let’s Address This.
Macklemore’s Response To Being Cancelled
Before diving in, it is entirely worth taking a moment to read Macklemore’s response to being cancelled from Ed Sheeran’s tour. Any emphasis added is my own.
I’m not sure how to start this. So I’m going to speak from the heart and share the truth. Ed Sheeran and his team have made the decision to remove me from The Loop tour.
But before I get into it, I want to say something that should be obvious. In this moment I think it matters. I am not a victim. Ed Sheeran is not a victim. Pink is not a victim. We have careers, money, opportunities, safety and audiences around the world. Whatever consequences any of us face for what we say, we get to go home to our families.
The victims are the Palestinian people. The men, women and children who have been killed, starved, displaced and forced to live through unimaginable violence. More than 20,000 children have been killed in Gaza alone. People are being killed today, and people will be killed tomorrow. I want to make sure that as I tell this story, we don’t lose sight of that.
Ed is my friend. I’ve known him for 13 years. We’ve shared late nights, studio sessions and stages. He has this infectious magic about him that I’ve grown to love. I consider him a brother. And because of that, we’ve had some difficult conversations this past week. The type of talks rooted in love and respect for one another that still end in a place of fundamental disagreement. Nothing I’m writing here is out of spite or because I want to tear down his character. But as I told Ed multiple times on the phone, our friendship can’t change my responsibility to tell the truth about what happened.
Last Monday, in the middle of all the media attention surrounding Pink and what I said at MetLife, Ed told me that Robert Kraft called him. We were scheduled to play Gillette Stadium later this month, which is owned by the Kraft Group. Ed told me that Kraft said I would not be allowed to perform in his stadium. Ed also told me that Kraft had rallied some of the other stadium owners and collectively they gave him an ultimatum: if Macklemore stays on the tour, you will not be allowed to play in our venues.
Ed was in a fucked up position. He knew it. His typical apolitical stance was being challenged in a way it never had been before. He told me that the words
“Free Palestine” and the image of the Palestinian flag were hurtful to a lot of people he spoke with. I told him that if those words were more offensive than tens of thousands of Palestinian children being killed by Israel, then there was a fundamental disconnect between where those people stood and where I stood. But he couldn’t get past his public facing, “ don’t take sides.”
And I get why people don’t. Taking a side can cost you. Money, brand deals, sponsorships, festivals, private shows, relationships and access. I’ve lost all of those things. But there is no neutral position between the oppressor and the oppressed. When one side has the bombs and bottomless financial and military support from America, refusing to take a side doesn’t leave you in the middle.
What I said at MetLife I have been saying on stages around the world for almost three years. So why is it an issue now? Because now I’m sharing a stage with one of the biggest artists in the world, in some of the biggest stadiums in America. At a certain level of exposure, “Free Palestine” becomes too much of a risk. If I kept doing the shows, saying Free Palestine, with Ed implicitly supporting it, the crowd getting loud and showing undeniable support for Palestinian liberation, what artist might speak out next? The stage becomes resistance. Maybe that’s why this time it became so important to silence me.
And one of the most effective ways to enforce that silence has been to weaponize the accusation of antisemitism. Antisemitism is real. And that is exactly why the word matters too much to be used as a shield against criticism of the Israeli state. When criticizing Israel, opposing Zionism or saying “Free Palestine” gets conflated with hatred of Jewish people, it doesn’t protect Jewish people. It protects Israel from accountability.
I hope this isn’t the end of my relationship with Ed.
Thirteen years of friendship doesn’t disappear because of one painful disagreement. I hope we both continue listening, studying what is happening in Palestine and wrestling with what neutrality means in a moment like this. My door will always be open to continuing that conversation.
When my brother Omar was doing the subtitles for the video I posted from MetLife, I thanked him. He told me there’s a phrase in Arabic:
لا شكر على واجب
“La shukra ala wajeb.” There is no thanks for a duty.
That stayed with me. Because that’s what this has become for me and millions of others around the world. A duty. Not something deserving of praise or gratitude. Not brave. Human.
Who is winning the internet, who is getting canceled, who gets to play the stadium and who doesn’t, all of it becomes so small when held against what we are actually witnessing in Gaza and the West Bank. An entire people being displaced, starved and killed while the world debates which words we are allowed to use to describe it, how those words make us feel, and whether our discomfort matters more than the people living through a genocide.
I didn’t need 10 shows from Ed. I needed 2. Two chances to stand in front of 90,000 people and say the words that somehow became too dangerous to say.
Free Palestine.
But if those words cost me the stage, while turning the conversation back to Palestine, then it was the most successful tour I’ve ever been on.
Macklemore’s words are full of conviction, compassion, and humanity. He could easily have condemned Ed Sheeran, but refuses, and instead leans into a hopeful future that sustains his friendship with Sheeran. But he does not lose focus of the task at hand. That is—he had a choice to remain “neutral” or condemn genocide, and he sees his success not in performing at a show, but in standing up for humanity. In this case, standing up courageously for the people of Palestine suffering apartheid and genocide cost him the tour. But his regret is not in being cancelled. It is in realizing a man he respected as his friend chose what Dr. King describes as a negative peace, which is the absence of tension, to a positive peace, which is the presence of justice.
And for those wondering, why only Palestine? Why isn’t Macklemore speaking up for all oppressed peoples? Well—he is. He’s already on record declaring the following:
“To all of my Jewish brothers and sisters: criticism of Israel, criticism of apartheid, being against genocide in no way is a criticism of you. My message is for peace; love for all human beings to be treated with dignity, respect, and equality.
“So I say Free Palestine, I say Free Lebanon, I say Free Cuba, I say Free Congo, Free Sudan, I say Free all people in America living in fear of this terrorist organization, ICE. None of us will be free until we are all free.”
Macklemore has chosen a side—a side of justice and humanity. Of universal human rights. And likewise, as much as Ed Sheeran may claim he’s “neutral,” his actions speak much louder. And we need to call his actions out out for their complicity.
Ed Sheeran Is Not Neutral—He Is Complicit
As I made clear in an Instagram post yesterday, Ed Sheeran is not neutral in times of injustice. His own words and actions demonstrate that he can see right from wrong, and is actively choosing to stand on the wrong side of history when it comes to Palestine. But meanwhile, he’s been at the forefront of standing up for Ukrainians suffering under brutal Russian oppression, war, and invasion.
What’s more, Sheeran has not been shy about working with Israel and the Israeli Defense Forces, even as they commit genocide and war crimes. This is a video commentary of a post by the official State of Israel account.
Ed Sheeran may try to convince himself he is neutral on Israel’s genocide in Palestine. However, he faces two problems. One, there is no neutrality in times of great moral conflict. To choose silence is to choose the oppressor. Two, his own actions make clear he has chosen a side—the actual side of the Israeli apartheid regime as it commits genocide of Palestinians.
Sheeran had a chance to do what is right. To stand up to injustice. To undo past harm done. Instead, he attempted to put the blame on Robert Kraft and his billions of dollars as why he “had” to remove Macklemore. This is, in a word, cowardice. Kraft, a man credibly accused of sexual abuse and who is in the Epstein Files, should not be the moral compass for anyone. Yet, this is who Shereen has chosen to side with. In short, when faced with justice versus genocide, Shereen has chosen genocide. And the world should take note, because rarely do we see such a clear contrast of options to choose from. What will we choose for ourselves and our children?
In a World of Sheerans, Be a Macklemore
As I responded yester to ADL Director Jonathan Greenblatt, who cheered Macklemore’s removal from Ed Sheeran’s tour:
If you really still think it’s about antisemitism—and not about enabling Palestinian genocide—then you’ll have to pretend Kanye ‘pro Hitler’ West isn’t playing at several of the same venues Macklemore was just cancelled from for saying Free Palestine. But guess that hypocrisy is to be expected from someone who described Musk’s Hitler salute as an “awkward gesture.
Yes, that’s not an exaggeration. The ADL described Musk’s repeated Hitler salute as an “awkward gesture.” And yes, Kanye West very famously wrote a song praising genocidal fascist Adolph Hitler, and there are zero restrictions to him playing at many of the same venues from which Macklemore is cancelled from for his ‘crime’ of declaring “Free Palestine.”
Which brings me to my final point—in a world where money, power, and influence gravitate to those who capitulate to billionaires like Robert Kraft—instead make the choice to be a Macklemore. If we cannot raise our voices now to declare the simple truth that the Palestinian people should be free of occupation, free of oppression, and free of genocide, then we are missing the moment. Then our future generations will ask us what we did when the moment called on us to speak up? Then we ultimately condemn ourselves to a similar fate. After all, the Martin Niemöller poem is not a very long poem.
Conclusion
As Macklemore said, we are not victims. The victims are the 100,000+ minimum who have been massacred in genocide. The 42,000 Palestinians who are maimed and now live as amputees. The thousands of mothers who gave birth via c-section and without anesthesia. The nearly 300 journalists murdered simply for reporting the truth. And the millions who continue to suffer violent occupation in the West Bank, genocide in Gaza, and apathy from billionaire power brokers who think their net worth justifies their worthless moral compass.
Macklemore and Sheeran have both built successful careers, but only one has built a moral compass that meets the moment.
In a world of Sheerans, be a Macklemore.
It’s what Palestine, and the world, needs now more than ever.
Qasim Rashid is a human rights attorney, author, and host of Let’s Address This—a platform dedicated to human rights, international accountability, and the journalism that corporate media refuses to deliver. Subscribe, share, and let’s remain relentless in our mission for a more perfect Union.
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Macklemore made one of the most *concise* and irrefutable statements of truth in his response here and that brings me a lot of hope.
on a related note, Pink's insipid accusations seem to have had a downright Streisand effect on Macklemore's activism, bringing more eyes and ears to his message.
Had Americans watched the atrocities of the holocaust in real time and decided to turn a blind eye THAT would have been antisemitism.
Watching this continued genocide in Gaza & calling out the hypocrisy of the Zionists using US military might to erase a people most certainly is not.
Only monsters murder innocents brazenly. We watch in real time.
There is no honor in defending the indefensible. There is no moral highground once you do.