said in a statement this week<\/a> that Macklemore had been \u201cdeeply offensive and hurtful to the Jewish community\u201d when he spoke in favour of the Palestine cause in two performances supporting Sheeran.<\/p>\nIn Wednesday\u2019s post on Instagram, Macklemore said that, \u201cwith everything that has happened over the last 48 hours, I want to bring the conversation back to where it belongs: to the Palestinian people who are still being killed, still living under military occupation, and still fighting for their freedom\u201d.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cI will be donating the entire $1 million of my net earnings from Ed Sheeran\u2019s Loop Tour to six organisations working directly to support the Palestinian people.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is what this has always been about. Not me. Not a tour. Not the headlines or the controversy. It is about Palestinians right to freedom, dignity and safety in their own homeland.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rapper added that he wanted to focus on the \u201cparents carrying their children into hospitals without the basic resources to treat them, and the physicians, paramedics, journalists and aid workers who keep going back in\u201d.<\/p>\n
He outlined that organisations and activists have \u201cpaid real costs\u201d for standing with Palestine, saying that \u201ctheir risk is of a far different order than mine\u201d.\n<\/p>\n
Just yesterday, 15-year-old Muhammad al Zinati was killed in an Israeli strike while rushing to help aid worker Sherif Lubbad, who had already been injured. He was a child. Both were murdered. Both should be alive.<\/p>\n
However, the musician added that aid alone \u201ccannot address the conditions that make it necessary\u201d, calling the treatment of Palestine a \u201cmanmade injustice\u201d that requires immediate political change.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cWhen the news cycle moves on, which it will, don\u2019t move with it, Free Palestine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier statements\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a statement released on Tuesday, Sheeran confirmed that Macklemore was removed from the tour in a decision taken by tour promoters following pressure by the owners of the stadiums on the upcoming dates.<\/p>\n
The English singer-songwriter said in his statement that he does \u201cnot use my professional platform for politics\u201d and confirmed that he would be continuing with the tour, adding:<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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 money.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, since that statement, all the support acts that were due to be opening acts for Sheeran on the upcoming dates have now pulled out in solidarity with Macklemore.<\/p>\n
Sheeran\u2019s next tour date is scheduled for this Saturday in Philadelphia and, on his official website, the support acts that have pulled out remain listed.<\/p>\n
A number of the acts that have pulled out of Sheeran\u2019s tour are Irish, while a couple of the others have strong Irish links.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US RAPPER MACKLEMORE has said he will donate his $1 million (\u20ac867,000) earnings from Ed Sheeran\u2019s Loop tour…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[8720,93,97,61,60,264671,1196,4268],"class_list":["post-626964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-ed-sheeran","tag-entertainment","tag-gaza","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-macklemore","tag-middle-east","tag-palestine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}