There is something particularly hollow about declaring yourself above politics at precisely the moment when taking a position might actually cost you something.
Ed Sheeran’s response to the removal of Macklemore from his US tour is a striking example. Faced with the exclusion of an artist who had used Sheeran’s stage to say “Free Palestine” and speak about Gaza and the occupied West Bank, Sheeran sought refuge in the reassuring language of moderation: unity, dialogue, diplomacy, sanctuary and the suffering of “both sides”. It sounds compassionate. It sounds reasonable. Above all, it sounds safe.
And perhaps that is precisely the problem.
Sheeran wrote that he was “appalled by the conflict between Israel and Palestine” and described the suffering and pain on both sides as a human tragedy. There is nothing objectionable about acknowledging Israeli suffering. Israeli civilians murdered, injured or taken hostage by Hamas are not somehow less deserving of compassion because of what the Israeli government subsequently did in Gaza. Hamas's deliberate attacks against civilians cannot be sanitised simply because one supports Palestinian rights.
But acknowledging equal human worth is very different from presenting the political and military circumstances producing that suffering as though they were symmetrical.
Hamas is an armed organisation. Israel is a sovereign state possessing one of the region's most sophisticated militaries and exercising enormous military power over Palestinians. Palestinians and Hamas are not interchangeable, just as Israeli civilians and the Israeli government are not interchangeable.
Sheeran called Palestinian and Israeli violence “equal”; it is that his language — “the suffering and pain caused on both sides” and his appeal to “multiple approaches” to peace — can be criticised for flattening major differences in power, scale, state capacity and civilian harm into an apparently symmetrical tragedy. Reducing this enormously unequal relationship to tragedy occurring on “both sides” risks replacing political reality with an emotionally comforting symmetry. It allows everyone to mourn and nobody to explain.
The Convenient Discovery of Being Apolitical
Sheeran's explanation deserves particular scrutiny. He said that he chooses to use his fame and music as a “place of safety and sanctuary”, maintaining diplomacy and keeping conversations open rather than turning his concerts into political forums. It is an attractive philosophy until one examines Sheeran's own history:
As Laura Snapes pointed out in The Guardian, Sheeran's relationship with politics has not always been quite so distant. He participated in the 2022 Concert for Ukraine, an explicitly humanitarian response to Russia's invasion. Snapes also notes his previous intervention over Brexit, his support for Jeremy Corbyn and his support for equality legislation in the United States. So the issue cannot simply be that politics has no place on Ed Sheeran's stage.
Politics apparently can have a place. The more uncomfortable question is which politics, under what circumstances, and at what personal or commercial cost?
Supporting Ukraine in 2022 placed an artist alongside an enormous coalition of Western governments, broadcasters, corporations and cultural institutions. Speaking about Palestine in an American stadium environment can generate very different pressures. That distinction matters.
There is nothing inherently wrong with an artist deciding which causes to support. Nobody is obliged to become a spokesman for every injustice on Earth. But once someone explains his silence through a general principle of political neutrality, his previous willingness to engage politically becomes relevant. “I don't do politics” is a difficult defence when the historical record demonstrates that sometimes you do.
Neutrality After Someone Has Been Silenced
More importantly, neutrality becomes extremely difficult to maintain once another person's political expression has already produced consequences. Had Sheeran simply declined to discuss Gaza from the beginning, one could reasonably describe that as political reticence.
But that is no longer what happened. Macklemore spoke. Powerful interests objected.
A billionaire stadium owner and strong Israeli supporter refused to allow him to perform. Other venues objected. The promoter removed him. The headline artist continued. At that point, the choice was no longer between politics and no politics. Politics had already entered the arena. The remaining question was what everyone involved intended to do about it. That is why Laura Snapes's observation that there is ultimately no neutral position in circumstances such as these is so pertinent. She also draws attention to Robert Kraft's political connections and longstanding support for Israel. Kraft is a friend of Donald Trump and a major supporter of Israel. At the 2019 Genesis Prize ceremony honouring Kraft, Benjamin Netanyahu praised his commitment to Israel and declared that Israel had no “more loyal friend”.
None of that automatically makes Kraft's decision illegitimate. Kraft has defended his position by referring to what he regards as antisemitic rhetoric and imagery associated with Macklemore and by insisting that advocacy for Palestinians should not obscure Hamas's responsibility.
That explanation should be recorded rather than caricatured. But it does not make the political dimension disappear.
When a billionaire with publicly documented political connections and a longstanding commitment to Israel determines that a musician advocating for Palestine will not perform in his stadium, describing everything that follows as merely a promoter's decision hardly removes politics from the equation. It simply relocates political power from the microphone to the boardroom.
“It Was Not My Decision”
Sheeran's other defence is technically important.
“Macklemore coming off tour was the promoter's decision; it was not mine,” he said.
That may be entirely true. But there is an enormous difference between making a decision and accepting one.
Sheeran may not have possessed the contractual authority to force a stadium owner to host Macklemore. He says he attempted to mediate between promoters, venue owners and activists and was unable to reach a solution. That should be acknowledged. But the actions of the considerably less powerful musicians around him demonstrated that another choice remained available. They could walk away. And they did. Finneas withdrew. Lukas Graham withdrew. Aaron Rowe withdrew. Beoga — Sheeran's Irish backing band — withdrew.
All cited solidarity with Palestine or opposition to Macklemore's exclusion among their reasons.
Suddenly Sheeran's apparent powerlessness looked rather different. Because these musicians did something wonderfully uncomplicated: they accepted that having principles occasionally involves losing something.
Principles That Cost Something
Aaron Rowe's decision is particularly significant because he possesses nowhere near Sheeran's commercial power.
For an emerging musician, supporting one of the world's biggest recording artists in American stadiums represents an extraordinary career opportunity. Yet Rowe withdrew, invoking his Irish background and Ireland's historical experience of colonialism and occupation. Beoga likewise referred to their Irish identity and understanding of colonialism when explaining their decision.
Lukas Graham made the broader point that wealth should not determine who controls public conversation, while Finneas objected to artists being silenced for speaking for oppressed people.
Whatever one thinks of their political analysis, their actions expose the weakness in the argument that there was simply nothing meaningful Sheeran could do.
There was. They did it. They relinquished the opportunity.
That does not mean Sheeran was morally obliged to cancel his tour. Cancelling stadium concerts affects thousands of people who have nothing to do with the dispute: employees, contractors, musicians, local workers and fans who have spent considerable amounts travelling and booking accommodation. Sheeran explicitly cited those responsibilities when explaining why he would continue. That is a legitimate consideration. But it is not the same thing as neutrality. It is a decision that the consequences of cancellation outweigh the reasons for refusing to continue. And that is itself a choice.
The Problem With “Both Sides”
This brings us back to perhaps the most troubling aspect of Sheeran's statement: the language of suffering on “both sides”. There is a seductive simplicity to that phrase.
At the level of individual human beings, of course there is suffering on both sides. A murdered Israeli child and a murdered Palestinian child are equally dead. Their parents experience grief rather than geopolitics. But recognising equal human worth does not require pretending that every political, military and historical relationship surrounding those deaths is equal. Nor should the phrase “Israeli state violence” be allowed to create the impression that a state is some autonomous machine operating independently of human beings. States do not drop bombs. States do not pull triggers. States do not demolish buildings. States do not formulate military strategy. People do these things through governments, armed forces, bureaucracies and political institutions. And those institutions can be sustained by varying degrees of public consent, electoral support, political participation, acquiescence and opposition.
States Do Not Commit Violence Without People - History makes that distinction important
When historians speak about Nazi state violence, they do not imagine that some abstract entity called “the Nazi state” independently invaded countries, deported populations, operated concentration camps and committed mass murder. Human beings did those things.
Political leaders ordered them. Bureaucrats administered them. Soldiers and police carried them out. Businesses and institutions sometimes facilitated or benefited from them. And the regime enjoyed varying degrees of support and acquiescence within German society.
But historical accuracy also demands recognition of Germans who resisted Nazism, Germans who opposed Hitler, Germans persecuted by the regime and Germans who cannot reasonably be assigned responsibility for crimes they neither supported nor committed.
The lesson is therefore not one of inherited or collective guilt. It is that the phrase “state violence” should never become a linguistic device for removing human agency from state actions. The same principle must apply when discussing Israel.
Israeli military operations are determined by political leaders and military commanders and implemented by human beings serving within Israeli institutions. Israeli citizens elect governments, participate in political life and can support, oppose or attempt to influence the policies undertaken in their name.
Consequently, it would be equally misleading to speak about Israeli state violence as though Israeli society were entirely detached from it. But Israelis are not a single political mind.
There are Israelis who strongly support their government's conduct of the war. There are Israelis who oppose aspects of it. There are Israelis who have demonstrated against their government. There are Israelis who campaign for Palestinian rights. There are Israelis who refuse military service or object to particular policies, and many whose positions cannot neatly be placed into any of these categories.
Recognising those differences does not require pretending that Israeli state violence somehow exists independently of Israeli society.
It requires something more intellectually demanding: distinguishing between individual responsibility, institutional responsibility, political support and collective identity.
And the Same Standard Must Apply to Palestinians
That distinction must work in both directions.
Palestinians cannot collectively inherit responsibility for Hamas's atrocities simply because Hamas is a Palestinian organisation.
A Palestinian child does not become responsible for October 7 by being born Palestinian. A Palestinian civilian does not become responsible for the murder of Israeli civilians merely because Hamas claims to act in the Palestinian cause. And an Israeli civilian does not become personally responsible for the killing of Palestinian civilians merely by being Israeli. But neither should “the state” become a linguistic shield that makes political and military violence appear detached from those who authorise it, implement it, defend it or politically support it.
There is therefore an important distinction between saying:
Israelis are collectively responsible for Israeli state violence
and saying:
Israeli state violence is conceived, authorised, implemented and, to varying degrees, politically supported by human beings within Israeli society.
The first assigns collective guilt. The second recognises political reality. And exactly the same intellectual standard should apply to Palestinian society, Hamas and every other state or armed political movement.
Why the Symmetry Still Fails
This is why Sheeran's “both sides” formulation ultimately feels so inadequate. It takes millions of individual people, governments, armed organisations, soldiers, civilians, hostages, political movements and radically different levels of military power and compresses everything into two apparently equivalent blocks:
Israelis on one side. Palestinians on the other.
Reality is considerably more complicated. Hamas's murder of Israeli civilians does not become defensible because Palestinians have suffered occupation, displacement or bombardment. Conversely, Hamas's atrocities cannot function as an unlimited moral credit against which every subsequent Israeli military action is charged. One can condemn October 7 and still scrutinise the scale and conduct of Israel's subsequent military campaign. One can demand the release of Israeli hostages while simultaneously demanding protection for Palestinian civilians. One can reject antisemitism absolutely while rejecting the proposition that criticism of the Israeli government, Israeli military conduct or the political support sustaining those policies is inherently antisemitic.
Indeed, Macklemore explicitly attempted to make precisely that distinction, telling Jewish members of his audience that his criticism of Israel was not criticism of them and framing his position around equal dignity for human beings.
The genocide allegation also requires precision. Palestinians, human-rights organisations, scholars and others have characterised Israel's actions in Gaza as genocide, while Israel emphatically rejects that allegation and says its military campaign targets Hamas rather than the Palestinian population. Genocide also has a specific meaning under international law, and political assertions about it should be distinguished from legal findings.
But none of that requires pretending that the underlying distribution of power is symmetrical.
Compassion can be equal. Civilian lives can possess equal value.
But power, military capability, political agency and responsibility do not therefore become equal.
That is precisely what the comforting language of “both sides” risks obscuring.
When Billionaires Decide What Can Be Said
There is another issue here that extends well beyond Israel and Palestine. Who gets to decide what artists are permitted to say? Macklemore was not demanding that Kraft endorse his politics. He was expressing his own.
Kraft owns the stadium and has interests, rights and responsibilities of his own. But when ownership of cultural infrastructure allows an extremely wealthy individual to determine which political positions may be expressed within it, questions about freedom of expression and economic power become unavoidable. And that is where Sheeran's language about keeping “conversations open” becomes almost paradoxical. The conversation wasn't kept open. One participant was removed from it. Calling what remains “dialogue” does not change that. If Macklemore had been permitted to perform and Kraft had publicly condemned his remarks, there would have been disagreement.
If pro-Israel organisations had protested outside the stadium while Macklemore performed inside it, there would have been disagreement.
If Jewish organisations had challenged Macklemore publicly and Macklemore had answered them, there would have been disagreement.
That is what an open political conversation looks like. Removing the speaker is something different.
Escapism for Whom?
Sheeran says his concerts are about “unity, joy, escapism, love” and creating somewhere everyone feels welcome. Again, it sounds admirable.
But escapism is considerably easier for those who have something to escape to. For people whose families are living through war, displacement or bereavement, politics is not a discussion that conveniently ends when the stadium lights come on. That does not mean every concert must become a political rally. It means only that “leave politics outside” is itself much easier to demand when the existing political arrangements are not destroying your world.
And once Macklemore had been removed because of political speech, the fantasy of an apolitical concert had already collapsed. The politics remained. Only the dissenter had disappeared.
The People With Less Power Showed More Willingness to Sacrifice
Perhaps the most damaging part of this episode for Sheeran is therefore not anything Macklemore said. It is what Sheeran's own supporting musicians subsequently did.
They were presented with essentially the same moral problem and reached a different conclusion. The smaller artists had considerably less commercial power and potentially much to lose professionally. Yet they walked. Sheeran stayed. That does not establish that their political analysis is automatically correct, nor does it prove that Sheeran secretly supports Kraft's position. It establishes something much simpler.
The claim that there was no meaningful alternative becomes difficult to sustain when several people standing beside you immediately demonstrate one. Principles are extremely easy when they cost nothing. Solidarity is easy when everyone in the room agrees. Free expression is easy when nobody powerful objects. And political courage is easiest when the politics concerned have already been approved by governments, corporations, broadcasters and the cultural establishment.
The test arrives when saying something — or refusing to accept someone else's silencing — carries consequences. Macklemore accepted consequences. Rowe accepted them. Beoga accepted them. Finneas accepted them. Lukas Graham accepted them.
Ed Sheeran chose a different course. And he is entitled to defend that decision. But describing it as apolitical does not make it so.
Silence Is Not Always Neutral
Perhaps that is the lasting lesson from this episode. Neutrality is not simply something we declare ourselves to possess. It has to be examined in relation to the power operating around us. There is an enormous moral difference between refusing to participate in a political argument and standing aside after somebody else has already used political and economic power to determine who is permitted to participate in it. There is also a difference between recognising the humanity of everyone caught in a conflict and reducing that conflict to an emotionally satisfying equivalence between “both sides”. Israeli civilians are not the Israeli government. Palestinian civilians are not Hamas. Jewish people are not collectively responsible for Israel. Palestinians are not collectively responsible for October 7.
But governments, armies and political movements do not exist independently of human beings either. Their decisions are conceived by people, carried out by people, supported by some people, opposed by others and ultimately judged according to what those people actually did. That distinction is more difficult than simply saying “both sides”. But it is also considerably more honest.
And when one artist speaks, a billionaire objects, institutions respond by removing the speaker, and the world's superstar at the centre of it all retreats behind the language of sanctuary, diplomacy and neutrality, perhaps the question is not whether politics should have entered the concert. It already had.
The only question was who would be permitted to speak about it.
When power determines that answer and everyone else carries on as before, the resulting silence should not automatically be mistaken for neutrality.
Sometimes silence is simply what power sounds like when nobody is prepared to challenge it.
⏩ Cam Ogie is a Gaelic games enthusiast.
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