Two weeks ago the opening act for Ed Sheeran's concert at MetLife Stadium, Macklemore, called for a "Free Palestine", and did his anti-Israel song, "Hind's Hall," resulting in him being dropped form Sheeran's tour. The story has fascinated the leftist media. On Tuesday, ABC's World News Tonight led with it over a thwarted terror attack in Pennsylvania, and Thursday on CNN's The Arena, Jonah Goldberg ripped the media's obsession with the story.
Host Kasie Hunt led the segment with a clip of Macklemore's remarks.
HUNT: Those comments from Macklemore have become a flashpoint in the conversation over the support for Palestinian people and free speech.... Macklemore has since been dropped from the tour ahead of scheduled performances in Boston. New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft saying that Macklemore would be unwelcome to perform at the stadium. All of Sheeran's other supporting acts then quit the tour in a show of solidarity with Macklemore. On Wednesday, Macklemore announced he would donate all the money he made on the tour to organizations supporting Palestinians, and he invited raft to match it. Kraft said he already committed to donate $2 million to aid in the region.
Hunt left out that reportedly Macklemore's $1 million donation went to six aid groups supporting Palestinians, including three with Hamas and other terrorist ties. She also ignored that in 2014 he came on stage dressed in a Jewish caricature costume. That information wouldn't fit in with the next clip she played.
MACKLEMORE: To all of my Jewish brothers and sisters, criticism of Israel, criticism of apartheid, being against genocide, in no way is a criticism of you. My message is for peace. Love for all human beings to be treated with dignity, respect and equality. So I say free Palestine. I say free Lebanon. I say free Cuba. I say free Congo, free Sudan.
He then added, "Free all people in America living in fear over this terrorist organization ICE," but of course Hunt made no mention of it. Instead she turned to CNN entertainment reporter Lisa France and asked her to explain "how we got here." France proceeded to give a most sympathetic report on Macklemore's situation.
Hunt followed France's report with a clip of Fox News's Jesse Watters saying that he doesn't think "free Palestine" is hate speech, and she asked Goldberg what he thought, and he unloaded.
GOLDBERG: The use of censorship in this whole thing is ridiculous. Robert Kraft has free speech rights, too. It's his venue. He has every right as a private citizen who owns the venue to say, there's certain things I don't want in my venue. Second of all, I think Macklemore, I'm sure his heart's in the right place, is basically a virtue signaling cliche generator. And while I agree the criticism of Israel, I have criticisms of Israel, is not necessarily anti-Semitic, but the disproportionate, wildly disproportionate in terms of media coverage, Israel is more covered as a country than like the next 20 countries combined. That can't be explained solely because of what's going on in Palestine.
Not when, China, which actually is an apartheid state, they practice Han supremacy there. They are destroying Tibet. They're destroying the Uyghurs in putting the Uyghurs, millions of Uyghurs in concentration camps. But people want to talk about apartheid in Israel, even though Arab Israelis have full voting rights and are represented in the Knesset, it starts to fee like a selective prosecution in a lot of ways to me.
This kind of thing is very faddish, pumped out a lot on social media, and I don't have a huge amount of patience for it.... I also don't think genocide is happening in Israel, in Gaza.
Goldberg then hit the nail on the head on Macklemore.
GOLDBERG: I'm just also exhausted by this argument that comes up every 15 minutes in our culture about artists thinking that they have this special place in our culture to give their opinions, often uninformed, not just on this, but on plenty of things. They use their status as a platform every year at the Oscars, someone gets an award and then pees from a great height on people that everyone in the room also dislikes, and everyone salutes their bravery for saying things that they're only going to get applause for. It's a boring argument. It happens all the time and like nothing new can be said about the fundamental issues about free speech and all this because government has nothing to do with censoring anybody.
Goldberg covered the absurdity of this story from all angles, and was unafraid. This is CNN?
