Caitlin Johnstone reports:
Oh My God Shut The Fuck Up About "Antisemitism"
“Antisemitism” watchdog groups are flipping the fuck out about hip hop artist Macklemore saying “Free Palestine” while opening for Ed Sheeran, and the western press are of course helping to spin this ridiculous nonsense as a massive scandal.
It's already well-established that the term 'antisemitism' is a hollow term, a term stuffed with sound and fury signifying nothing in a wasteland of similar terms that have lost their meaning due to overuse and abuse like 'right-wing' and 'terrorist'.
Just because you oppose Russia's invasion of Ukraine does not mean you should hate all Russians.
Just because you oppose Ukraine's celebration of Nazis does not mean you should hate all Ukrainians.
Just because you oppose Islamic terrorrism does not mean you should hate all Muslims.
Just because you oppose illegal immigration does not mean you should hate all immigrants.
Just because you oppose Israel's action in Gaza does not mean you should hate all Jews.
Antisemitism has become just an obvious smear and little more than a cheap trick to shut down discourse and dissent like the claims of all those decapitated Israeil babies were supposed to justify killing lots more Palestinian children.
Some people undoubtedly hate Jews and probably you would too if your family was killed in an airstrike and cleared away as just more debris in the rubble, or if someone you knew was raped by a dog or denied humanitarian aid while imprisoned.
You would hardly be a normal human if you did not adopt a somewhat hateful attitude to these and similar outrages.
But is that kind of hatred really anti-semitic or something a bit more basic that is not much to do with religion or race?
A useful article covering protests in Italy over an anti-semitism bill is here:
Update 15/09/26:
Predictably, Macklemore has been banned from the Sheeran tour as his words are 'hurtful to some people'.
Caitlin Johnstone reports here:
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/macklemores-tour-cancellation-shows
It's odd how back in the 1980's celebrities were lining up behind the slogan 'Free Nelson Mandela'.
There were no billionaires then forcing them to retract their statement or 'cancelling' them.
How times have changed.
Update 16/09/26:
Out of the Loop:
All of the artists scheduled to support Ed Sheeran on his upcoming tour have pulled out in protest after US rapper Macklemore was removed as his opener over his comments about Palestine.
Irish musician Aaron Rowe, Danish band Lukas Graham and Billie Eilish's brother and musical collaborator, Finneas, announced late on Tuesday that they were pulling out of Sheeran's The Loop tour.