NOBODY says ‘I am not complicit’ unless the question has already crossed their mind.

Singer Ed Sheeran wrote it this week, unprompted, in a statement captioned “It’s important that I set out some facts.” Not facts about Gaza, where the death toll had passed 73,000 by the night of his opening act, but facts about himself.

The sequence matters. On Sept 4, in New Jersey, the rapper Macklemore performed Hind’s Hall, a song named for the Columbia University building that students renamed for Hind Rajab, a five-year-old killed in Gaza. He told the crowd he had wanted this tour so he could stand in stadiums and say two words near to his heart. Free Palestine. The next night he said them again, and added that criticism of Israel was not criticism of Jews. On Sept 6, the Israeli-American Council launched a petition to remove him. On Sept 11, the singer Pink amplified the calls. On Sept 14, the promoter announced he was off the tour, after Robert Kraft, who owns Gillette Stadium, said he would not be welcome there and, by Macklemore’s account, rallied other stadium owners to do the same.

For 10 days Sheeran said nothing.

There is no neutral position between the oppressor and the........

© Dawn