Tim Lawrence

Boycott Ed Sheeran, the new face of genocide apologism!

Pop music’s liberal facade is in ruins, at least

16 September 2026

Boycott Ed Sheeran! Don’t go to his shows! Delete his music files, throw away his CDs, break his vinyl! Get rid of tour memorabilia that’s helped make him the eighth wealthiest musician on the planet. If you’re one of Sheeran’s 23m followers on Facebook, unfollow him! Help Sheeran understand that there’s no fence to sit on during a genocide by denting his £410 million fortune!

Just when we wondered if Boy George or Pink would win the battle to become pop music’s face of genocide apologism, Sheeran has stolen the murderous show. Nor is this just about Sheeran’s betrayal of Macklemore and any fans who oppose the genocide. For beneath Sheeran’s readiness to drop Macklemore for declaring “Free Palestine!” at two concerts at the at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey lies a corporate entertainment network of pro-Israel money that wants to clamp down on any form of opposition to Israel’s actions.

Robert Kraft owns the Gillette Stadium, the home of the New England Patriots, where Sheeran is performing on 25 and 26 September. Kraft bought the New England Patriots franchise for $172 million in 1994. It’s now valued at $9 billion—with Kraft’s worth estimated by Forbes to be at $13.8 billion. He played the leading role in having Macklemore no-platformed, contacting other stadium owners to persuade them to drop Sheeran if Sheeran didn’t drop Macklemore. As it happens Sheeran performed at Kraft’s wedding in 2022.

Kraft has donated millions of dollars to AIPAC and stands as one its top donors. He also raises funds for the IDF through an organisation he runs, Friends of the IDF. He led the campaign to pressure Columbia to clamp down on the solidarity campaign by publicly withdrawing his contributions to the university. He launched the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism—which is really the Foundation to Combat Criticism of Israel—which has spent tens of millions trying to persuade people that in the midst of Israel’s bloody campaign against the Palestinians the real threat is people protesting against it. Kraft is Jewish, which isn’t relevant. He believes that Jewishness and unstinting support for Israel are indelibly tied, which is.

Miriam Adelson is also part of Sheeran’s friendship group and makes Kraft look like a villager. Her total net worth is around $40 billion, most of which comes from her majority ownership of Las Vegas Sands, a casino and hospitality company, and her 70% ownership of the Dallas Mavericks, an NBA team. Las Vegas Sands owns Hard Rock Live, where Sheeran will play on 29 and 30 October.

Adelson donated over $100 million to support Trump’s 2024 campaign and has promised him $250 million if he runs again. She is the owner and publisher of the pro-Netanyahu Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom. She has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to pro-Israel causes, including $250 million to Birthright Israel. She pressured Trump to move the US embassy to Jerusalem during his first term and to recognise Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. While her role with Macklemore has been behind the scenes, she funds the Zionist Israeli-American Council which launched a petition that put pressure on Sheeran to dump Macklemore by accusing Macklemore of spreading propaganda. Apparently pro-Israeli propaganda is good but anti-genocide propaganda is bad.

The third key player in the action to stamp out dissent is Messina Touring Group, which is half-owned by AEG Presents, the world’s second-biggest live entertainment events promoter—Live Nation, which art-washes Israel’s genocide, is number one. AEG, which runs major events like Coachella, is a subsidiary of Anschutz Corporation. Anschutz is owned by Philip F. Anschutz, an evangelical Christian billionaire. Its charitable foundation has donated heavily to pro-Israel and far-right groups.

It’s mega-easy for the owners of corporate USA to get away with supporting Israel while it ethnically cleanses and genocides the Palestinians because they’re anonymous, boring people who superficially entertain us. It’s hard to keep up with the way they direct the profits from this entertainment to the caging up and elimination of the Palestinians. It just means we need to ask questions of all of these corporations—and if it turns out they’re complicit it becomes our duty to try to redirect our financial support to a non-genocidal entity.

Maybe it’s even easy for mega-pop stars, including Sheeran, to get away with their complicity. Their smiles and songs hide their associations with the corporations they strike deals with. The superficial, no-stakes multiculturalism of the pop world and its favourite slogan of “love, peace and unity” masks the general vacuity of its politics. Fans also find it hard to end relationships they invest so much in emotionally. Times are hard enough—do we even have to look the other way while blocking our ears when it comes to pop culture? At least with Sheeran the liberal-corporate facade has collapsed and it’s now easier to make a conscious choice.

Massive credit to Macklemore, whose stand on Palestine predated the start of the genocide. He stood up and made a short, simple statement: Free Palestine. He also made it clear that he wasn’t criticising Jewish people in the audience. No, he was criticising Israel’s actions. He also called for Congo, Cuba, Lebanon and Sudan to be free and criticised ICE. That was it. The response of Messina made it clear that, as has become commonplace in the mainstream media, much of social media, and mainstream political discourse, criticism of Israel isn’t permissible. A warning was sent out to future artists: if you do the same you, too, will be dropped.

Macklemore responded not by diluting his stance but by writing a clear and principled instagram post that has received 6.8 million likes to date. Through this and his previous actions he continued to occupy the avant-garde, not in terms of the structure of his music but instead its lyrical content and framing. The avant-garde originally referred to the vanguard of an army that took the greatest risk when it came to scouting and confronting the enemy. The avant-garde was the bravest, the boldest, often the youngest. They were ready to die for their cause. Macklemore is part of that. Empty Ed doesn’t deserve to be friends with this guy.

And today news has come through that the acts that were booked to open for Sheeran (FINNEAS, Lukas Graham and Aaron Rowe) and also Sheeran’s backing band (Beoga) have pulled out of Sheeran’s tour. They join many other musicians and actors who’ve taken a humanitarian stand against Israel’s genocide, often losing gigs and roles as a result. All of them have accepted the responsibility that comes with enjoying a public profile. Through their timing and the high profile of Sheeran’s tour, FINNEAS, Lukas Graham, Aaron Rowe and Beoga have taken the artist protest to the next level.

This is what solidarity looks like. It places Sheeran in a position that until recently was hard to imagine. For the longest time Sheeran has embodied the strand of pop culture that floats along, uttering sweet thoughts, offending nobody and taking no stands. There’s a genocide going on? Just smile and call for peace and don’t bring bad vibes into the room.

But out of the blue Sheeran will now forever be remembered as the reprobate megastar who lacked the stomach to behave like a human—to take the kind of stand that FINNEAS, Lukas Graham, Aaron Rowe and Beoga, who don’t have anything like his wealth, have taken. He will forever be the coward, the capitalist accumulator, the mammonist, the person for whom making money is an addiction Not even £410 million is enough.

The statement made yesterday is replete with apologism, distraction and false symmetries. It’s an arch example of denialism that I’d like to dissect.

Sheeran: “I am appalled by the conflict between Israel and Palestine.”

There isn’t a conflict between Israel and Palestine. With the support of western powers, Israel has colonised Palestine, placed apartheid laws at the heart of its existence, ethnically cleansed the Palestinians, extended the cleansing by occupying East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank, and perpetrated a genocide against the Palestinians. There wasn’t a “conflict” between the Nazis and the Jews, the Bosnian Serbs and the Bosnian Muslims, or the Hutus and the Tutsis. There’s no conflict between Israel and Palestine.

Sheeran: “The suffering and pain caused on both sides is a human tragedy.”

There is no equivalence between the suffering experienced by Israeli Jews and the Palestinians. If every life lost is a tragedy then the tragedy experienced by the Palestinians is 35 times greater than Israeli Jews, because the ratio of Palestinian to Israeli-Jewish civilian deaths is 35:1 To position this ongoing collective punishment as being equal is to be complicit with the genocide.

Sheeran: “There are too many wars across the world causing immeasurable pain, none of which should be tolerated.”

Israel’s ethnic cleansing and genocide isn’t a war. A war involves two independent nation states that possess their own armies engaging in a battle for victory. Palestine isn’t and never has been an independent nation state that possesses its own army. Western powers and Israel have made sure they were never given this opportunity. So there is no war and there has never been a war.

Only liberals, who are unable to analyse power relations and their own entanglement in those power relations, think in terms of war as well as “immeasurable pain”. Like all liberals, Sheeran wants to be seen to be on the right side of history, showing care for those who suffer, but he won’t do anything to alleviate the immeasurable pain if it requires him to make a personal sacrifice. He hasn’t yet worked out how to get by on his accumulated wealth of £410 million.

Sheeran: “Macklemore asked to join my tour last year and I agreed, because I respect him as an artist.”

Sheeran uses the word respect without understanding the roots of the word. Black slaves claimed that respect was a fundamental form of self-definition and survival in a system designed to deny them humanity. Aretha Franklin embraced “Respect” as a form of Black feminist resistance, resilience and joy. Black rappers and other musicians spoke of respect as a form of honour shared between people facing racism and oppression. If Sheeran respected Macklemore he’d have stood by him against the pro-Israel position of the stadium owners. He’d have waved goodbye to those owners and their blood-stained wealth.

Sheeran: “I spoke with the venues at length all week to try and build a bridge. One of those people was Robert Kraft. I was also involved in direct talks with promoters along with activists on both sides to try and find a mutual resolution for all, but the venue’s and promoter’s decision was final.”

All we know about these conversations is they forced Sheeran to stop trying to sit on a non-existent fence—because there’s no fence to sit on during a genocide—and to take sides. He chose the side of Kraft and other stadium owners who support Israel during the period of its greatest ever act of criminality. If fans ask for a refund on their Sheeran tickets, boycott the stadium in the future, protest outside the stadium and online then the value of Kraft’s investment will deservedly, beautifully go down.

Sheeran: “Macklemore coming off tour was the promoter’s decision, it was not mine. Macklemore’s contract for the tour was with the promoter, not me.”

Macklemore didn’t come off the tour, he was removed from the tour. By continuing to tour Sheeran has sided with the promoters. He should grow up and take responsibility for his actions.

Sheeran: “I would never let down the fans who had made plans, nor would I abandon the touring crew and the other support acts and musicians who rely on me for work and to make a living.”

Sheeran assumes that his fans care more about him than Palestine. Maybe some of them do. Maybe many of them do. But the likelihood is that most are disgusted by the genocide and don’t think it’s something that should be buried. Polls of US voters consistently show that they sympathise more with the Palestinians than the Israelis by a margin of at least 2:1, that three in four college students believe that Israel is committing a genocide, that around 55% of voters under 30 believe Israel is committing a genocide, and 36% of voters aged over 65 believe the same. As for the musicians who “rely” on Sheeran to make a living, it turns out that they don’t rely on Sheeran at all. He has been truly shamed.

Sheeran: ”I have always used my platform and music to bring people from all backgrounds and cultures together and this won’t ever change. Those who have been to one of my shows will know that they are about unity, joy, escapism, love, and a place for everyone to feel welcome.”

This kind of smug, vacuous bullshit is unbearable. The cost of seeing Sheeran—ticket prices range from $100 to $1,000—is prohibitive for poor people. Sheeran’s audiences are almost completely white—the BAME presence is extremely thin. Almost all of his concerts take place in the US, Europe, Australia and NZ. So the idea that people from all backgrounds and cultures are attending his concerts is a white multicultural fantasy. The unity, joy, escapism and love he shares doesn’t extend to the Palestinians or apparently anyone else who faces systematic oppression. He is delusional enough to believe that everyone will feel welcome even though he is unable to take a stand on Israel’s genocide.

Sheeran: “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 became less complicit when he provided Macklemore with a platform. But his decision to continue the tour without Macklemore makes him exponentially more complicit because he’s side with those who want to repress dissent. He’s also ready to culture-wash this repression by claiming that he’s all about unity and love. On the “devastating conflict”, Sheeran is clearly not devastated in any way. It’s also not a conflict, for fuck’s sake.

As for the views he says he holds, if he’s anti-genocide but doesn’t want to say anything in public then he’s a pathetic, complicit, specimen of a human being. If he’s supportive of the genocide, then he’s subhuman. The idea that we’re supposed to care about Sheeran wanting to support causes in his “own, personal way”, wallowing in his £410 million while a genocide continues to unfold, is loathsome.

Sheeran: “There is a reason I do not use my professional platform for politics—my audience includes young people, often children, of all backgrounds. Those who come to my shows do not expect a political forum.”

Young children are far more politicised than Sheeran when it comes to the genocide. Thanks to social media young kids know more about this genocide—which has seen Israel murder more than 21,000 children—than any previous generation. Young children also tend to find the question of whether young children deserve to die or not pretty easy to work out—and might appreciate some solidarity. In short, Sheeran is protecting Sheeran, not young children.

As for the political forum, this amounts to yet another repulsive sleight of hand. Macklemore’s act of dedicating a couple of lines to the Palestinians didn’t turn a three-hour concert into a political forum. It didn’t turn into a parliamentary session or a council ward meeting or a party conference or a political seminar. Does Sheeran think that the artists who campaigned against racism in the US or the Vietnam war or South African apartheid reduced their songs and concerts to a political forum? Does he think that Fela Kuti, Bob Marley and Miriam Makeba should have toned it down?

Sheeran: “There is room for multiple approaches to the same end: peace. I choose to use my fame and platform to be a place of safety and sanctuary, to maintain diplomacy and keep conversations open, not closed. If we only focus on shouting the loudest, nothing will ever change.”

Peace isn’t the end. Peace is just a fig leaf of complicity. It’s the kind of thing that people who are pro-Israel say in order to say absolutely nothing. It’s the same as saying you support a two state solution but not explaining what this means, how it’s to ever come about and what you will do to make it come about. Peace is a deception that liberals float in order to try to look like they’re on the right side of history. Peace is meaningless when there isn’t a war. Justice is the end.

But Sheeran would rather turn his concert into a safe space, which has come to mean a safe space for people who support Israel and don’t want to have to acknowledge its ethnic cleansing and genocide. His diplomacy has led him to say goodbye to Macklemore and close down that conversation. He insults Macklemore, who didn’t even shout, by insinuating that taking a bold stand won’t change anything. He insults all of us by feigning that his own approach—which amounts to him keeping his thoughts to himself while colluding with people who want to repress dissent—will lead to change.

And to think that Sheeran has a tattoo of a lion tattooed on his chest. It’s more denialism. He’s a charlatan.