Life is inherently complicated. We must resist the urge to oversimplify complex issues. The pursuit of trying to be on the ‘right’ side can be a trap, blinding us to the full spectrum of perspectives. It’s okay to ponder, be multifaceted, and nuanced. We often find ourselves believing in ideas that may oppose each other. This is just a reflection of the intricate and messy nature of life. Acknowledging and understanding our biases — we all have them — is essential to empathy. Our challenge is then to shine light into the darkest corners.
Macklemore, you owe me, and the almost 16 million Jews in the world, an apology. I’ve always wanted to see you live, but for our family of five, that’s a big financial lift. We were thrilled to finally be at your concert, but that changed 40 minutes in when you shared “thoughts” written that morning. You, whom I’ve admired for confronting humanity’s darker sides with uplifting words, twisted Free Palestine and Never Again into a bigoted trope, and did so under the guise of not being anti-Semitic. I couldn’t believe you would degrade one group to elevate of another.
Here’s me being raw and real with you Macklemore. Yours was not a message of love. Never Again happened on October 7th. What Hamas did was genocide — when a nation or group deliberately kills with the aim of destroying a nation or group of people. They did not simply “kill” their victims. Many were raped and tortured prior to being murdered, while family members were forced to witness the barbarity. And all of it, they filmed and broadcasted.
Israel was attacked, in a deliberate, highly coordinated and carefully orchestrated assault that required the active assistance of Palestinian Gaza residents who provided detailed intelligence about targets. And now Israel is defending itself, with the same vigor of the U.S. after the 9/11 attacks on our country. How much more incensed would we have been if our citizens weren’t bombed by airplanes turned into missiles, but instead hacked to death, forced to watch their babies burned alive, or raped while pieces of their bodies were cut off.
The war in Yemen has killed over 150,000 people from military action. Sudan currently has the largest child displacement crisis in the world with three million children fleeing violence in search of food, shelter, health care, and safety. Nearly six million Ukrainians have fled their country due to war, while an estimated eight million have been displaced within their borders. Faced with threats of ethnic cleansing, over 100,000 Armenians fled Azerbaijan. And there is much more to name.
There are so many horrific things happening in the world and all deserve our attention. We must choose which cause we focus on, but in doing so must ask why we made the choice. Why is Israel being targeted for the actions and impacts that other governments also take and cause around the world?
I agree, what is happening in Gaza is horrific. But Macklemore, you should not condemn the Israeli government without also condemning the atrocities committed by Hamas. You cannot claim to be a proponent of peace between Israel and the Palestinians without recognizing and acknowledging that the duly elected representatives of Gaza, Hamas, has always called for the destruction of Israel and the killing of Jews and continues to do so.
Your failure to acknowledge this is hypocritical and a disingenuous display of virtue signaling at the expense of Israeli and Jewish security and lives around the world. Never Again means genocide shall never again be committed against any people. Israel has never had the ideology to end the Palestinians. “Free Palestine” means the creation of a Palestinian state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. That is not possible without ending the state of Israel and displacing or killing the more than 7 million Jews who live there. A long-term sustainable future of peace in the region requires a free and democratic Palestinian state, but this cannot be achieved by committing genocide or by providing moral support to those who pursue it.
We all seek light in the darkness. You, the the Palestinians, the Jews, and me. My ancestors are yelling too — Never Again. After I left your concert with tears streaming down my face, a man turned to my husband and said, “She’s not wrong.” I wasn’t the only person who felt the trauma of your words. Heed your own advice, when you mess things up, say your sorry.
From Macklemore in Seattle December 21, 2023 – watch it here https://vimeo.com/897228717
When I say Free Palestine, it’s not against anyone.
It actually means we should protect everyone.
It means equality for all respect, peace and love.
It means a right to exist regardless of what sector you are from.
My intention is to never offend anyone.
I want every soul in this arena to feel the reflection of love.
But there’s innocent humans out in Gaza getting murdered with our dollars, and those precious human lives are an extension of us.
I can’t get up here and a fur coat, jump around and pretend while in my gut, my gut’s saying, you know better, Ben, the ancestors yelling.
You better step up for us.
I love my Jewish brothers and sisters so much, and my perspective is one that saying Free Palestine is also rooted in your protection, my love.
And there isn’t a drop of anti-Semitic thought in my head or my blood.
Never again means never again for all.
Have we not learned the lessons?
My love, the self centering around what is potentially threatening to us is actually at the root of what disconnects all of us.
The word genocide aside, is such a point of contention for some that it’s more hurtful than seeing dead babies getting pulled out of the crumbled cement in the dust.
Yes. What about comparative suffering leaves to believing the lie.
There’s a them and there’s a us.
It’s a lie, we don’t own this earth.
We’re just guests here, my love.
And at some point in time, we drew lines in the mud based on the color of our skin, the gods we worshiped and the divine up above.
And historically, we’ve exploited black and brown bodies to climb up the rungs.
But the latter doesn’t work when it depends on the oppression of some.
And I’ve been hearing the earth cry lately. Yeah.
The deepest cries. My, oh my. What have we done?
Yes, we got some work to do to unlearn and rewire the plugs that are short circuiting in a selfish cycle, that we’re blind to the drug, that we’re all addicted to me, myself, I, and not us.
In this moment in time, we’re being called to rise and become, see ourselves in the pain of others, and not separate from them and not forget the other pain.
And I’m gonna say it till I die, with my chest to the sky: Free Palestine. The message is love.
