- by Romana Rubeo
- The Guardian
- Issue #2208
Macklemore. Photo: #ShotByDrew – flickr.com (CC BY-ND 2.0)
Macklemore pledged his entire net earnings from Ed Sheeran’s tour to six organisations supporting Palestinians. His announcement placed immediate pressure on Sheeran and billionaire stadium owner Robert Kraft to demonstrate their own commitment publicly.
While Macklemore spoke explicitly about Palestinian freedom and dignity, Kraft characterised Israel’s genocide in Gaza as a “humanitarian crisis.”
Macklemore whose real name is Ben Haggerty, said the donation represented the entirety of his net earnings from the tour. He also publicly invited Robert Kraft to match it.
“I want to bring the conversation back where it belongs,” Macklemore wrote on Instagram.
“Whatever we disagree about, perhaps we can agree on this: Palestinian lives are worth protection,” he continued. “A Palestinian life is no less valuable than any life on this earth.”
The money will be distributed among six organisations: the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, HEAL Palestine, Gaza Soup Kitchen, Medical Aid for Palestinians, American Near East Refugee Aid, and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
The pledge redirected public attention away from the decision to remove Macklemore and toward the Palestinian people on whose behalf he had spoken.
It also transformed a debate about whether political speech belonged in a stadium into a more difficult question for those who had sought to remove him: what, concretely, were they prepared to do for Palestinians?
CHALLENGE AND ANSWER
Kraft responded shortly after Macklemore’s announcement, saying that Sheeran had contacted him earlier that day and asked him to commit $2 million to address the crisis.
According to Variety, both Sheeran and Kraft agreed to donate $2 million, although the intended recipients and precise distribution of the funds were not immediately specified. According to Forbes magazine, Kraft is worth around US $7 billion. He owns the New England Patriots gridiron team, and the USA’s only privately owned stadium.
“I have dedicated much of my life to building bridges between all people. I believe deeply that all lives are worth protecting,” Kraft said.
“Earlier today, before Macklemore challenged me to match his donation, Ed called me and asked me to commit $2 million to match his donation to aid in the region to fight this humanitarian crisis,” he added.
Kraft said Sheeran would also approach other venue owners, with the stated goal of working together to “build bridges.”
His account claimed that Sheeran’s approach preceded Macklemore’s public challenge. Nevertheless, Macklemore’s announcement placed a concrete figure, named beneficiaries and an unmistakably Palestinian political context at the centre of the controversy.
Furthermore, Macklemore spoke about Palestinian lives, liberation, freedom, dignity, and safety. Kraft, by contrast, described the situation as a “humanitarian crisis” and placed his response within the familiar language of dialogue, business opportunities and bridge-building between Palestinians and Israelis.
Absent from Kraft’s statement were the words genocide, occupation, blockade or Israeli responsibility.
Equally important are the receipts of Kraft’s supposed donation: will they include UNRWA, for example, the main source of international support to Palestine, which is blacklisted by Israel’s extremist government?
The public response soon widened beyond the figures directly involved in the tour controversy. Children’s educator ‘Ms Rachel’ announced that she would also donate $1 million, matching Macklemore’s pledge, while urging other prominent figures to speak out.
“I will match Macklemore’s donation, and I invite every wealthy white celebrity to match it and speak out against the genocide in Gaza,” she wrote on her Instagram account. “Over 20,000 precious Palestinian children have been killed, and children continue to be killed every day. We have a moral obligation to use our privilege and platforms to protect children and human rights.”
Unlike Kraft, who referred only to a “humanitarian crisis,” Ms Rachel explicitly described what is happening in Gaza as genocide, further demonstrating how Macklemore’s gesture had expanded both the financial response and the political conversation.
NEWS CYCLE
Macklemore announced that he had been removed from the remaining dates of Sheeran’s tour after stadium owners objected to his pro-Palestinian performance.
The controversy began after Macklemore performed Hind’s Hall, his 2024 protest anthem, at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. The song is in support of pro-Palestine protests in the US and is named in honour of Hind Rajab, a five-year old Palestinian girl killed by Israeli forces in Gaza. Before performing the song, Macklemore told the audience that part of the reason he had joined the tour was to enter major US stadiums and say, “Free Palestine.”
He also stressed that his condemnation of the Israeli government and its actions was not directed at Jewish people.
Kraft subsequently rallied other stadium owners around an ultimatum demanding his removal, according to Macklemore. Sheeran himself had confirmed that Kraft was among the venue representatives who had raised objections to the performance.
Kraft did not deny Macklemore’s account but maintained that the decision was not intended to silence Palestinian advocacy. Instead, he attributed it to remarks and imagery that he claimed had been “deeply offensive and hurtful to the Jewish community.”
By donating his tour earnings, Macklemore shifted the pressure back onto those who had excluded him. Yet Macklemore cautioned against treating donations as a substitute for sustained solidarity.
He described financial contributions as among the least costly forms of support and said his focus would remain on the Palestinian people and their right to freedom, dignity and safety.
“When the news cycle moves on, which it will, don’t move with it,” he wrote. “Free Palestine.”
Palestine Chronicle (edited for space)
Israel tightens grip on West Bank
Dr Hosny Shello
The West Bank is experiencing an unprecedented escalation characterised by the isolation and fragmentation of cities, an intensification of settlement construction, and frequent incursions into towns and villages. This situation is compounded by the deployment and arming of settler militias – equipped with some 80,000 weapons – who are seizing control of land with the explicit support and protection of the occupation army.
Furthermore, economic conditions have deteriorated and unemployment has risen; state employees have been receiving only half their salaries for four years, the private sector has suffered a recession following 7 October, and approximately 150,000 Palestinian workers have been barred from entering Israel for employment – all of which has led to a decline in purchasing power.
Military checkpoints serve as one of the surveillance tools employed by the occupying forces to advance their colonial project, which is predicated on the geographic and demographic fragmentation of the occupied Palestinian territory. Alongside the expansion of settlements in the West Bank – including Jerusalem – and the construction of the annexation wall deep within occupied Palestine, the occupying forces have – over the course of decades – intensified the use of military checkpoints, effectively transforming cities, villages, and refugee camps into isolated, disconnected cantons.
The ties binding the West Bank have been severed by approximately 700 military checkpoints – varying in form and type, both fixed and mobile – as well as stone and earthen barriers, particularly within and between the villages themselves. The blockade was further tightened through the installation of 132 military gates.
Palestinian villages are currently facing an escalation in violence; groups known as the ‘Hilltop Youth’ are seizing residents’ lands, attacking homes, and assaulting citizens at gunpoint – all under the protection of the army – while also stealing livestock. These actions are part of a broader policy aimed at displacing the population and tightening the stranglehold on residents.
On 19 July, settler militias – protected by Israeli occupation forces – attacked the village of Ein Arik, west of Ramallah, marking a new escalation in their assaults on citizens and their property. During the attack, livestock was stolen from Ein Arik, coinciding with the arrival of Israeli military reinforcements; occupation forces stormed the village and fired live ammunition at the residents. Approximately 200 head of livestock were stolen – an act that reflects the occupation’s policy.
It’s good news that 12 European countries are taking a stand against settlement products, but more international solidarity is needed. Israel is beginning work on the E1 settlement plan, using a crescent of illegal Israeli settlements around East Jerusalem to divide it from the West Bank.
