To feel sorry for Ed Sheeran.....

[mids2019]

So Ed Sheeran's tour is in tatters simply because he believes music for entertainment and personally he likes to keep politics out of it (as many many stars do).

Simply because his support wanted to highlight the oppressed people of Iran and the use of capital punishment to stifle dissent support wanted to bring up Gaza without any reference to the start of the war due to a massacre on October 7th and Ed didn't want that he is suddenly the bad guy? Perhaps Ed succumbed to sing of thinking of Jews in the audience and the connotations of 'Free Paelstine' he is now on the naughty step of virtue signallers.

So all those Sheeran fans could lose out seeing someone they have waited months to see because some humpty has to jump on the Gaza bandwagon with a few trite soundbites as part of his act (because hey the ME isn't complicated) to look a bit radical or whatever. Bloody disgrace.

Agree

I respect Ed Sheeran for his statement. It demonstrated nuance, sensitivity and intelligence. The way Macklemore and many of the more vocal pro-Palestine people talk is belligerent, hectoring and often rather stupid. They want to reduce everything to black and white, oppressor and oppressed, good and evil. They can't compute that the situation actually has many sides and good and evil is difficult to apportion.

Your post states 'Gaza bandwagon'.
Extremely offensive..
As the UN concluded, it's a genocide.not bandwagon.

This!

Imagine if it was considered jumping on the bandwagon to denounce apartheid in South Africa. Or women's rights. Or nazis. Or slavery. If people got accused of being woke everytime they pointed out that concentration camps and the systematic rounding up and mass murder of communists, homosexual, gypsies, Jews and the disabled was wrong. It's astounding how powerful pro Israel propaganda has been in shaping reactions to anti- genocide rhetoric

I respect Ed for taking the stance he did , there are different opinions, why should one side be able to express theirs freely and others with different views fell thru cannot.

‘Evil is difficult to apportion’

Gaza now has the highest number of child amputees per capita in the world.

At least 8 children have died just today following the collapse of a building that had previously been bombed and they’re still blocking any aid so people are having to dig with their bare hands to find loved ones in the rubble.

If you think this is okay and you’re against charities like Save the Children and Oxfam then I don’t think you’re on the right side somehow.

People who say 'this didn't start on October 7th' are effectively say that in some ways, October the 7th was justified. The current war did start on October 7th. Palestinians didn't have to rampage into Israel murdering civilians. They had the choice to not do it. They didn't need to do it. It achieved absolutely nothing for them other than more death and misery and never could have achieved anything for them.

Again, with the black and white.

It's almost as if... it's actually more complicated than those issues.

If this post is deleted, will mumsnet please provide a transparent and robust reason.

You think those 'issues' weren't complex?

They were all incredibly complex and horrific.

It's almost as if you think what's happening in Gaza complex like some men think consent is complex.

No complexity - and there was plenty - justifies any of the atrocities mentioned by the poster you've quoted. The same applies to Gaza

The whole thing is farcical.

I just shake my head when I hear another wealthy, witless pop artist ‘use their platform’ to shout ‘free Palestine’ (or Fuck JK Rowling…or Fuck Trump..or whatever the current bandwagon issue is) ..before jumping on their private jet to go and quaff champers and snort coke with the billionaire record label bosses who make them famous,

These are some of the most vacuous, self interested people in our society. People who would sell out their principles and lick the boots of the billionaire promoters and stadium owners they criticise if THEY were offered the level of fame and money that Sheeran has.

These people are only ‘using their platform’ for one thing - to keep themselves topical, current and relevant. They don’t have the moral high ground here.

Shameless self promoters like Paloma Faith on the news tonight saying she would have cancelled the tour if she was Sheeran…the point is, you’re not. You are washed up and desperate to stay relevant and have suddenly decided that - in between the podcasts where you talk endlessly about yourself and tabloid articles your PR people place about you and the envelope openings you turn up to - that you simply must take a stand for the children of Gaza.

Yeah, right.

So, while I don’t feel sorry for Sheeran exactly, I would like to see more music artists know when it’s time to shut the fuck up.

Write a political song and perform it at your own concert so people can decide if that’s what they want to hear on a night out …or speak at a rally, join a march, vote…nobody is asking you to be ‘apolitical’.

But don’t hijack every joyous, happy, celebratory and inclusive music event (especially ones that are not actually about YOU, because nobody paid Sheeran ticket prices to see fucking Macklemore) and make it about YOU and your half arsed political statements.

We all know this lot will have moved on by next week, anyway. Did you know the war in Ukraine is still raging? That Black Lives STILL Matter? etc

I dont feel sorry for him, hes a shitebag ffs. He did a concert for Ukraine but sits on the fence re Palestine.

Utter shitebag. So what if America cancels him, hes got enough money.

Is it only the mass killing of Palestinian children that’s considered “complicated,” or is there somewhere else in the world where 1 in every 50 children is being killed that you would also call complicated?

@mids2019 if you think 'the war' started on October the 7th then you seriously need to get your head out and actually do some research my love. I feel very very sorry at the level of ignorance of some people honestly

Palestinians didn't rampage into Israel, Hamas did. Show me a headline where an IRA attack was described as "the Irish" or a Baader-Meinhof attack described as "the West Germans".

And Paloma Faith isn't shameless shes absolutely correct.

I'm certainly not saying it was justified. But it was not unprovoked either. And it certainly wasn't the beginning of anything. Take a look at other killings in the days and weeks before the October 7th attacks.

It would be completely disingenuous to begin a retelling of Nazi Germany and only begin with the 1943 Sobibor uprising. The same is true here.

It's not surprising that people believe this conflict all began on October 7 because that is what our media tells us.

I do not want or need Paloma Faith or Macklemore telling me what is going on in Gaza or telling me how to think.

Do I feel sorry for the millionaire Sheeran? A bit. I don't think he deserved this shitshow, and I certainly don't think it's about the money for him (however much say he actually had). But I/P is such a honeypot for virtue signallers. Macklemore won't be hurt by the publicity.

(for the record, I own zero Sheeran records, and one Macklemore record)

”They didn’t have to do it”

Have you any idea what happened in the decades till then? Any idea?

How they (the Palestinian people) had tried diplomacy, how they had tried negotiation, how they had pleaded and pleaded with the international community for political support or sanctions with no one answering their pleas as their children were shot and penned into certain areas? They. Were. Desperate.

I do not think October 7th was justified, I don’t. But a cursory look over human behaviour over the centuries tells us that eventually, if you treat a group of people very badly over a period of time - they will revolt. They will fight back.

Don’t call people terrorists for fighting back against terrorists.

One group of those terrorists have a lot of billionaires on their side, it’s not a fair fight.

The rest of us with a brain and a conscience are on the other side.

Read this back @Dumbledore167

But a cursory look over human behaviour over the centuries tells us that eventually, if you treat a group of people very badly over a period of time - they will revolt. They will fight back.
Don’t call people terrorists for fighting back against terrorists.

…you could be talking about either side.

The thing about hardening into one position and telling yourself you are on the right side of historyis that you stop seeing it from the others’ perspective. No solution ever comes from this way of thinking.

Nope, disagree.

Were Jews persecuted unfairly in recent history? Yes.

Was that abhorrent? Of course it was.

Does that give Jewish people the right to terrorise and kill their way to a “homeland”? NO

Almost everyone has nothing against Jews, couldn’t care less what they do or who they worship.

Zionists?? That’s a different story given they’re killing kids to do their “god given right”.

Two things can exist - we can be anti antisemitism and against violent colonialism under the guise of “bible” instructions.

We have to be.

Do you object to Debra Messing, Sharon Osbourne, Maureen Lipman, Amy Schumer and other such celebrities using their platforms to advocate for Israel.

Then don't go to concerts where they are performing. It's quite simple really. Macklemore didn't make anyone come to a concert where he was performing. People were free to sell their tickets, give them away, not attend, turn up later on and miss the support act. There were so many options which didn't involve seeing Macklemore at all, yet they all chose to go and then complain about it. It's quite astonishing how dim witted large sections of the population can be. Macklemore forced me to listen to his opinions(at his performance that I chose to attend) and I didn't like them 😭😭😭