ISRAEL HAYOM (by agreement with JNS)
‘Free Palestine’: Ed Sheeran opener goes off rails
Inbar Cohen
September 6, 2026

British pop star Ed Sheeran’s concert in the New York metropolitan area on Friday turned into a political flashpoint that left a number of concertgoers stunned. The controversy began when American rapper Macklemore’s opening set at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, veered sharply from music into an overt political demonstration. Macklemore did not confine himself to the music. The rapper took the massive stage wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh and called out “Free Palestine” to tens of thousands of concertgoers. For Israeli and Jewish members of the audience, however, that was only the beginning. READ MORE

NEW YORK POST Ed Sheeran’s silence speaks volumes — as pro-Hamas Macklemore takes the flak Ed Sheeran can’t say he didn’t know. For the last two years, rapper Macklemore has made radical political activism as central to his public persona as his music. He’s released songs that falsely accuse Israel of “genocide” and “apartheid,” and that embrace the violent pro-Hamas campus protest movement. He’s donated concert proceeds to the Hamas-aligned UNRWA, an organization whose employees took part in the Oct. 7 massacre. Yet Sheeran — the folk-pop singer-songwriter whose bashful demeanor has won him a huge following among both teen girls and their moms — chose to hire the woke rapper as the “special guest” on his national tour.