Earlier this month, Macklemore stood in front of 90,000 people at MetLife Stadium as part of Ed Sheeran’s United States tour and delivered a message that he has shouted for years: “Free Palestine.” The rapper who rose to prominence for his 2010s hit “Thrift Shop” performed “Hind’s Hall” – a song named for 5-year-old Palestinian Hind Rajab, who was killed by Israeli fire. This Monday, he was removed from the remainder of the tour. Sheeran, whose tour it is, had not said a word since the controversy arose two weeks ago. On Tuesday, he released a tepid and defensive statement: “I am not complicit. I have my personal views on this devastating conflict. Just because I choose not to speak publicly, it doesn’t mean I don’t have them, and it doesn’t mean I don’t care. Nor does it mean I don’t support causes in my own, personal way.”
Sheeran’s silence as all of this unfolded is the real story and, despite his apparent insistence, it is not the absence of a political position: it is the delivery mechanism for someone else’s…billionaire Robert Kraft’s.