Alternatively, we will examine why he has become a focal point in the debate over free speech and Palestine.
Here’s what most people understand:
The English singer-songwriter chose to cut American rapper Macklemore from his US tour after Macklemore had voiced opposition to the genocide in Gaza.
Robert Kraft, the owner of the US football team (for our European audience: that’s American football with a pointy ball and helmets), the Patriots, pressured him to keep Macklemore from performing at his stadium.
But Kraft wasn’t alone among stadium controllers.
“David Tepper and Arthur Blank—the respective owners of the Carolina Panthers and Atlanta Falcons—had made up their minds, people familiar with the matter said,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
“Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie would soon reach the same conclusion, as the owners traded phone calls and prepared to address the situation.”
This sparked the outrage currently dominating entertainment news—billionaires once again cancelling artists for speech opposing US foreign policy.
Clearly, the First Amendment seems to have limited protection in a market economy.
Kraft, Tepper, Blank and Lurie are all, in addition to being titans of the US economy, Jewish. Kraft is especially well known for his philanthropy for pro-Israel causes.
He’s also named in the Epstein files.
The fact that a small group of wealthy Israel advocates is pressuring major artists to avoid criticising the Jewish state is becoming visible to the global community.
International Jewry should be concerned.
Let’s clarify: the false myth that “the Jews” control media, entertainment, and finance is part of a racist and fascist ideology. It aims to blame capitalism’s failures on various ethnic, racial, and religious groups.
Unfortunately, some billionaire Jews ignore this Antisemitic narrative by using their influence to sway politics and culture, as many billionaires do.
The Antisemitic mindset then exploits incidents like the Sheeran and Macklemore controversy to falsely suggest a widespread Jewish conspiracy, which only worsens the situation for Jews. Put this all in a broader context.
Dave Portnoy, the Jewish founder of Barstool Sports, reportedly worth a quarter of a billion dollars, supported Kraft’s move.
After all the controversy about leftist cancel culture threatening freedom of speech, conservatives like Portnoy hail the crackdown on opinions they don’t like.
Meanwhile, right-wing Jewish billionaires use their financial power to influence discourse in other ways, and then cry “Antisemitism” when this gets pointed out.
Jewish tech billionaire Larry Ellison bought a major stake in TikTok after anti-Chinese sentiment in the US forced its sale from its owner–the social network was accused of pro-Palestine bias, and Ellison is a well-known Israel advocate.
Meanwhile, his son, David Ellison, has acquired entertainment and news giant Paramount. He installed conservative Zionist Bari Weiss as chief editor of CBS News, and now he’s looking to acquire Warner Bros., which includes the major news network CNN.
Al Jazeera reported that when actor Mark Ruffalo criticised the excessive control of a single oligarch over the Ellisons’ tech business and linked it to the Gaza genocide, Paramount accused him of using “anti-Semitic tropes”, claiming that mentioning “genocide” and “apartheid” in relation to a corporate deal was excessive.
Despite this, over 180 Jewish entertainment figures publicly supported Ruffalo.
When the Washington Post reported that pro-Israel business leaders pressured then-New York City Mayor Eric Adams into cracking down on student protests against the genocide in Gaza, the reporting was denounced as Antisemitic by the mayor and Israel advocates.
Oh, the reporting was factual. It’s just that some people in power didn’t like those facts going public.
It’s almost as if billionaire Israel advocates have decided that rather than try to counter Antisemitic conspiracy theories, they’d rather lean into them, providing fresh fodder for the ever-hungry racist social media content mill. And they have the luxury of doing so.
These individuals never worry about their own economic or physical safety. However, for the rest of us Jews, they intensify tensions in an environment where many are experiencing war and economic struggles. Their lack of concern for our welfare is astonishing.
A vulnerable population becomes susceptible to fascist demagogues, who shift blame away from the market and onto a few Jewish individuals and their non-white followers, employing scapegoats to distract from systemic exploitation.
Zionism has grown increasingly comfortable with publicly using economic force amidst a background of rising poverty and social inequality to promote Israel. Do the math. It’s the perfect recipe for promoting resentment of Jewry.
Look, for example, at this video of pro-Israel influencer Lizzy Savetsky–famous for joking with Elon Gold about raping Palestinians–giving a tour of her luxurious New York City home, the type of living quarters a working person could only dream about.
Savetsky jokes about “making pro-Zionist content in the back of Mohammed’s yellow cab”. She’s belittling this made-up person not just for being Muslim, but because he’s a struggling service worker who is forced to do the bidding of a rich lady like her.
The influencer’s lack of self-consciousness is astonishing. It’s as though we’ve learned nothing about Antisemitism since the Holocaust, and the economic factors in the Weimar Republic that drove support for the Nazi genocide.
Such cavalier wealth and power flaunting is proof that Zionism and anti-Zionism are code for class conflict in the Jewish community. But it poses the question: What audience is Savetsky trying to reach here? Other rich sadists?
This type of pro-Israel media campaign, which comfortably adopts exaggerated villainous portrayals, reinforces the notion that Jewish Zionists exist above the common people, including other Jews. They’re an aristocratic, nationalist vanguard beyond reproach.
Such messaging should offend the conscience of everyone in the 99 per cent, both Jewish and non-Jewish.
It’s not Larry Ellison and Robert Kraft who will need to be vigilant in that hostile environment if they clash with a Nazi goon.
Regular Jews, overlooked by the wealthy, will be the ones who have to face the music over their banning of free speech about Palestine.
Photograph courtesy of Alisdare Hickson. Published under a Creative Commons license.
