Rania Khalek praises Macklemore and condemns the tour removal
Journalist and host of Dispatches on BreakThrough News
“The cowardice here is unbelievable. People like Ed Sheeran can afford to stand on the right side of history and still be successful and rich. They choose not to out of cowardice, ignorance or both. Macklemore deserves sooo much praise. And billionaires like Robert Kraft who enforced this nonsense are villains.”
The full case
Macklemore’s “Free Palestine” speech and removal from Ed Sheeran’s U.S. tour
Explore the case context, sources and public responses.
Source and context
Original post
Rania Khalek praises Macklemore after his removal from Ed Sheeran’s tour (opens in a new tab)Complete X post and timestamp
About this source
Primary X post. It directly attributes this reaction to Rania Khalek (@RaniaKhalek) and provides the post text and timestamp.
Before the quotation
Khalek quote-posted Variety’s report about Macklemore’s removal from the remaining U.S. dates of Ed Sheeran’s tour.
After the quotation
She criticized Ed Sheeran and Robert Kraft while praising Macklemore.
How this statement is classified
Khalek expressly says Macklemore deserves praise and condemns the reported consequence of his speech, which supports a defense of the conduct at issue.
- Recorded on
- Published here
- People and groups discussed
- Macklemore
More from this case
Read the full case“Glad to see Macklemore off Ed Sheeran’s tour. For years, Macklemore has pushed antisemitic tropes and demonized Israel and Israelis. Now he certainly has the 1A right to speak out and express his views, but demonizing Jews and Israelis shouldn’t be rewarded.”Read statement
“The moral narcissism of this guy. People don’t generally pay to go to concerts (certainly not Ed Sheeran ones) to get lectured by a dropkick about geopolitics, and objecting to that doesn’t make them bad people. It’s like giving a speech about cancer at someone’s wedding and then saying well cancer is more important than your feelings and so it’s my right and duty to give a speech about cancer and if you complain about it you obviously don’t care about cancer. There are layers of logical fallacy here. As I’ve noted before, sufferers of Israel derangement syndrome think that everybody else should be as deranged as they are, and that those who are not are morally inferior.”Read statement
“This will backfire spectacularly on Kraft et al (and proponents of the current Israeli government around war in Gaza). Most of us were unaware of Macklemore’s on-stage advocacy. Now, in the aftermath of this move by Sheeran (direct result of Kraft’s ultimatum), Macklemore is going to get an insane amount of positive earned media.”Read statement