But the backlash against Macklemore only grew louder, and included a petition by the Israeli-American Council urging Sheeran to remove him from the tour.
“This was an Ed Sheeran concert – not a political rally, not a protest, and not an activist event,” the council said, adding that the rapper used “biased messaging and disputed claims.”
In his statement on Instagram, which was nearly 1,000 words long, Macklemore said that after a week of “difficult conversations” with Sheeran, that ultimately ended “in a place of fundamental disagreement”, he was dropped from the lineup.
Tour promoter, Messina Touring Group, told Rolling Stone magazine that it had been told by venues that they would not allow Macklemore to perform, “which would result in the cancellation of the tour and impact hundreds of thousands of fans.”
American businessman Robert Kraft, who owns the Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts, said he banned Macklemore because the venue would not “provide a platform for hate speech,” accusing the rapper of “a broader history of antisemitic rhetoric”.
“I agree with Macklemore, too many lives have been lost and there has been too much suffering, but only sharing selective information and ignoring the actions of Hamas is not honest and only advances more divisiveness and hate,” Kraft said.
In his statement, Macklemore said he empathised with the difficult position Sheeran was in, but criticised the English singer for not taking a stance.
“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,” he wrote.
He also addressed the accusations of antisemitism, writing that “one of the most effective ways to enforce silence has been to weaponize the accusation of antisemitism”.
Macklemore added: “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.”
But he emphasised that even though he only did two shows on the tour, if his words succeeded in “turning the conversation back to Palestine, then it was the most successful tour I’ve ever been on.”
