Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, friend of Donald Trump, and proud mega-donor to AIPAC, just showed us once again how raw oligarchical power can crush any pretense that our speech is protected by the First Amendment.
Read more Edward Said: Between Worlds
Bob Kraft is the person primarily responsible, as he readily admits, for compelling international music superstar Ed Sheeran to drop his opening act, hip-hop artist Macklemore, from his stadium tour. Macklemore’s crime was saying two simple words at a previous tour stop to rapturous cheers: “Free Palestine.” Kraft proceeded to tell Sheeran that if Macklemore stayed on the bill, his sold-out show at Gillette stadium—where the Patriots play and which Kraft owns (and for which he received millions in public money)—would be canceled. When pop musician Pink wrote on her Instagram that Macklemore’s invocation of “Free Palestine” made her feel “scared ” as a Jewish person, Kraft stepped in and rallied other stadium owning billionaires to make the same threat. As a result, Sheeran threw Macklemore under the bus and removed him from the rest of his tour.
Macklemore has issued a formal response to all of this—and people should read the whole statement. It says in part:
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. 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.
There is much to unpack here. First, as a Jewish person myself, I’d like to point out that the true antisemite in this drama is Bob Kraft. He uses his billions to prop up the idea that Jewishness is synonymous with supporting the Israeli state and, therefore, that it’s antisemitic to have any opinion other than the defense of a 78-year-old colonial territory and its total war on the people of Gaza. That people like Kraft and Pink insist that to be Jewish definitionally means to be a Zionist, even though there are more Christian Zionists in the United States than there are Jews, is utterly antisemitic. This false equivalence not only whitewashes an ongoing genocide, it winds up actually fanning the flames of antisemitism.
This position is also a tremendous slap in the face to the legions of young anti-Zionist Jews in the United States who are not willing to check their humanity at the door. A recent Washington Post poll found that believe Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza and 39 percent say that the country is committing a genocide. And the youngest respondents represent the highest percentage of Jews who have simply had enough. These young people are expressing their disagreement through organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now and by saying loudly “not in our name.” All this has only thrown Netanyahu’s Israel further into the arms of international fascism—both domestically and abroad—as its minions try to silence their critics by force. Kraft is a part of that project: a representative of a minority opinion who is using his economic weight to silence anyone who challenges it.
For those unfamiliar, Kraft is a true believer in the Zionist project, from the river to the sea. He was married in Israel to his late wife, Myra, in 1963. He raises funds for the Israeli Defense Forces through the organization Friends of the IDF. He has given millions to AIPAC. He even started an organization, Touchdown for Israel, that gives NFL players free vacations to see “the holy land,” then encourages them to come back to spread the word about “the only democracy in the Middle East.” Suffice it to say, the West Bank and Gaza are not on the tour. Unsurprising that these tours are organized by Friends of the IDF.
But Kraft—when not sexually exploiting young immigrant laborers or showing up in the Epstein files—really stepped up his defense of Israel once the genocide got underway. First, he very publicly withdrew his donations to Columbia University because students had the temerity to protest his treasured war on the people of Gaza. Then, he started the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, which has now spent tens of millions of dollars on TV ads—including during the Super Bowl at $7 million a pop—called “Stop Jewish Hate.” These ads traffic in falsehoods by including protests against Israeli genocide in its tally of instances of “antisemitism,” a common way to exaggerate the breadth of antisemitism and argue that organizing for a free Palestine constitutes a hate crime. The real hate, in Kraft and Pink’s mind, is not the tens of thousands of murdered children. It’s college students sitting under a tent in the quad. Kraft bizarrely said on CNN in December, “Fifty percent of what’s being spread is lies and not accurate, and young people unfortunately are believing.” So if 50 percent is true, is his argument that half a genocide is OK?
Read more Edward Said: Between Worlds
And what about Macklemore’s longtime friend Ed Sheeran in all of this? Here is what Macklemore said about what went down:
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, “I 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.
Macklemore is being kind. Shame on Ed Sheeran for buckling in the face of oligarchical censorship. Shame on him for turning his back on a friend. Shame on him as an artist, for not sticking up for artistic freedom on his tour. Shame on him for thinking he could be neutral, when neutrality in the face of genocide is complicity.
We owe Macklemore a debt. He could have chosen silence. He could have agreed to stop calling for a free Palestine on stage. Instead, he stood firm to the principle that there is nothing antisemitic about criticizing Israel, and there is nothing antisemitic about opposing genocide. Macklemore’s choice was a principled one. As he said in his statement, “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.”
Bob Kraft and Pink believe that their feelings—and their defense of the indefensible—matter more than the reality on the ground in Gaza. They believe their feelings matter more than the feelings of Palestinians who have survived this carnage and are desperate for solidarity. They believe their feelings matter more than everyone who has spent the last several years watching a genocide being livestreamed on their phones.
They are wrong. And the more they insist otherwise, the more they expose themselves as moral black holes, and the more it feeds the ire of young people in the United States who are not willing to support funding the arsenal of this slaughter. They are standing up, even in the face of billionaires, like Bob Kraft, who are willing to devote their fortunes to facilitate their repression. The courage of Palestinian-rights activists is our hope for the future. If only Ed Sheeran were half as brave.
