\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div> \t\t\t\t\tEbro, Laura Stylez, and Peter Rosenberg in New York in 2024<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJohnny Nunez\/WireImage<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tAnd then October 7th? \n\tIt was kind of like, in retrospect, it was a real indicator of where this shit was going to go. The situation had gotten so out of hand and people weren\u2019t going to have the nuance to be able to say, \u201cIsrael has been doing really terrible shit for a long time, and also massacring Jews at a music festival is evil.\u201d We\u2019re not going to be able to say both those things at the same time. The internet won\u2019t allow for it.<\/p>\n \n\tThat\u2019s a bone of contention for Israelis. Why was there zero empathy for what they went through \u2014 an unprovoked attack on a mostly peace-forward population of Kibbutz members and festival attendees?<\/strong> \n\tIn my world, there really weren\u2019t a lot of people being like, \u201cYo, this October 7th thing is so fucked up.\u201d It sort of went right to, \u201cIsrael\u2019s fucked up.\u201d And I was like, \u201cWhoa, can\u2019t we get a day or two?\u201d \u2026 And I think that broke some people. I honestly believe Michael Rapaport, for example, it broke his brain. It made him like, \u201cOh my God, everybody hates Jews. Nobody cares.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBut there\u2019s a disconnect that\u2019s built into it, and I think that\u2019s been a real problem ever since. I don\u2019t think it has anything to do with the fact that people don\u2019t care about Jews or don\u2019t think October 7th was fucked up. I think it\u2019s that we live in a time now where people have a much bigger view of what\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n \n\tYou said that you found Ed Sheeran\u2019s statement horrifying. Do you want to elaborate on that? \n\tBut God, I think the most interesting thing happening here is that we are in real time watching the wind blow a different direction than it\u2019s ever blown before.<\/p>\n \n\tIt feels like a tipping point.<\/strong> \n\tI\u2019ve said this for some time: if Jews control the media, we have the worst PR. \n\tWhat do you think he should have done or said?<\/strong> \n\tAgain, who knows what all the inner workings are with the contracts, but I would think everybody agreed to this tour. You\u2019re now saying you don\u2019t want me in your building. Let\u2019s play that out and let the court of public opinion have their say as well. Instead, he chose to go one direction and now he is still playing in the public court of public opinion, but he\u2019s the one who\u2019s on trial. And he\u2019s now the bigger story than Macklemore.<\/p>\n \n\tIt\u2019s really not all that different from the BDS movement, where Western artists were being stopped from performing for Israeli audiences. Here\u2019s a pro-Palestinian artist performing for Jewish audiences and they want him gone. The messaging is really conflicting.<\/strong> \n\tThe only person who could solve this problem immediately is Robert Kraft. He seems like the only person who, if his statement was remotely sincere, could have said, \u201cHey, obviously I see things differently than Macklemore. We\u2019re going to sit down and have our conversation and see if Macklemore is interested in talking to you about the issue in earnest.\u201d Which my guess is, knowing the kind of person [Macklemore] is, he probably would.<\/p>\n \n\tBut that\u2019s not what they did. They did the same thing everybody accuses Jewish people in Hollywood of doing. They did the worst thing possible. And then you have something like this happen and not only does it totally corroborate everything that Kanye West was saying [about Hollywood and the music business], it also inextricably connects American Jews and Israel in this way that\u2019s not helpful for any of us. I just don\u2019t understand where they thought the wind was. There was a time they thought that they could just silence everybody and the internet has changed that. They just can\u2019t do it. It\u2019s not going to work.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tMacklemore in France in August<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tARNAUD FINISTRE\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tAn argument has been made that Kanye\u2019s show doesn\u2019t include any political messaging, coupled with Kraft\u2019s assertion that Macklemore\u2019s comment constitutes hate speech.<\/strong> \n\tThat\u2019s the part that\u2019s so awful about it: he made a painstaking effort to not be at all malicious to anyone. We have to accept the fact that there are a lot of people who literally believe the words \u201cfree Palestine\u201d is an attack on Jewish people. And we have to separate ourselves from that idea as American Jews.<\/p>\n \n\tWe should be capable of holding two things at the same time. One, that there is immense, real Jew hatred that we have seen espoused by people like Kanye West, who think it\u2019s a joke to talk about Hitler and that it\u2019s funny as he has expressed previously on multiple occasions. Whether he writes it off, or others write it off, as mental illness or not, he has expressed that his beliefs, at least at one point, have been that basically Jews are fundamentally evil, run the world and pull the strings like puppet masters \u2014 all the true antisemitic tropes that exist. Real Jew hatred like that exists.<\/p>\n \n\tAnd simultaneously, what the Israeli government has been doing for a long time, but especially the last three years, is outright evil and we do not want it done in our name. In fact, I think they go hand in hand. They\u2019re both the same thing. It\u2019s standing up against hatred, standing up against Jew hatred and standing up against state-sanctioned hatred against Palestinian people. Both of those things can be true and are true.<\/p>\n \n\tWould things have turned out this way if Macklemore had said something about those who were killed at a music festival on October 7th?<\/strong> \n\tBut at the same time, you have to look at the big picture here and not just this immediate moment of like, \u201cWell, when Macklemore says \u2018Free Palestine,\u2019 why doesn\u2019t he include Israel?\u201d It\u2019s like that\u2019s a little bit of, \u201cwhat about white history?\u201dhe people in power are the Jews in this case, the Israeli government. So the people that are powerless and are being actively attacked and killed are not Jewish Israelis. That\u2019s not what\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n \n\tSo I think that context is important for us to remember. We are the people \u2014 we are the definition \u2014 our history is being displaced, is being the people under attack. We\u2019ve been there so many times throughout history, but in this specific circumstance, that\u2019s not what this is. So people trying to do the \u201cwoe is me\u201d thing for Jewish people, while I understand it\u2019s easy with our history to be sensitive, you have to be specific to this situation. And in this situation, that\u2019s not the role that we\u2019re in.<\/p>\n \n\tYou grew up with a strong connection to Israel. Can you talk about that?<\/strong> \n\tAnd so once he realized what it was, he just started going the other way. And I would say by the time [Yitzhak] Rabin was killed [in 1995], that was a last straw \u2014seeing an extremist right-wing lunatic in Israel kill Rabin and kill the dreams of peace. He was like, \u201cOh, these people are not what I thought.\u201d And so it\u2019s just been going the other direction ever since. (Read MJ Rosenberg\u2019s Substack here.)<\/p>\n \n\tYou\u2019ve visited Israel, and you\u2019re married to an Israeli. How do you reconcile your love for Israel with your criticism of its government? \n\tThe word \u201cZionist\u201d has been changed and bastardized so much. How do you think about it now? \n\tThis is the hard part about us adapting and unlearning certain things and realizing that everything has changed. There was a time when people didn\u2019t know what Zionism was even about. They would just be like, \u201cShut up, Zionist pig.\u201d And you\u2019re like, \u201cOh, you just hate Jews.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tI know it\u2019s kind of crazy because that was only a few years ago, but the climate has changed and now people really do have more of an understanding of what it is fundamentally about. And I think unfortunately, again, when you go do the work and look into it, it unfortunately is really problematic going all the way back to the foundation of the Zionist movement.<\/p>\n \n\tWhat about the argument that Jews are indigenous to the area? \n\tOne thing we can agree on: everyone is fighting over this tiny piece of land because it\u2019s so special to so many people. What do you do with that? \n\tI always think back to what Golda Meir said: that this conflict will be over when Arabs love their children more than they want to kill Jews.<\/strong> \n\tAnd I think it\u2019s been really hard for us to accept that either. I think we all just accepted, no, well, Israel couldn\u2019t do bad because the Jewish people I know in my life are the most generous defenders of downtrodden, all the good things. That\u2019s where I got every sort of good ideology I\u2019ve ever had, I feel like, comes from my Judaism. And then you\u2019re like, \u201cBut there are people who are really using it for evil.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tEvery religious group has people who are lunatics. I remember when I saw the Bill Maher movie Religulous<\/em>, I was like, \u201cHow do you do a whole movie about how crazy religion is and not include Judaism?\u201d He left it out like we\u2019re normal. I was like, \u201cWait, hold on. You think only Christianity and Islam are weird?\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Yeah. And then October 7th. It ratcheted up right away. I remember I got into a fight immediately with the porn star Mia Khalifa. She posted something like, \u201cFreedom fighters, send your videos so we can see what you\u2019re doing.\u201d And I\u2019m like, \u201cYou\u2019re really calling Hamas freedom fighters? You sound fucking nuts.\u201d<\/p>\n
I think about that, too. If I\u2019m trying to be empathetic and remember, sometimes it\u2019s hard because it\u2019s been going on for a few years and the response has been so disproportionate by Israel, that it\u2019s hard to remember how I used to feel. But when I do go back, I remember being like, \u201cDamn, nobody even stopped to say that that shit was horrifying.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t\t\u201cWe should be capable of holding two things at the same time\u201d<\/strong>\t<\/h2>\n
<\/strong>Horrifying is more just speaking about how poor it was. It was horrifying in how just unaffected it would possibly be in making him look any better. It was just another really bad misstep.<\/p>\n
Yeah. The tipping point happened. There was [a time] in history [when] it would have made sense in the eyes of the people around him to make the decision that he made. However, this time is not that. And he made the worst decision possible because Israel has completely lost the public.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>It\u2019s an unbelievable thing to think about: how they were able to turn everybody against them, but that is what they\u2019ve done. And so I think that he thought he was making the safest decision probably. And I\u2019m not trying to say it was an easy decision either. Everyone wants to oversimplify it. Every person in the comments who\u2019s never risked anything for any issue wants to tell everybody to throw everything away in a heartbeat \u2014 like nothing even needs to be considered. That\u2019s a tough spot for him, but man, they just completely got it wrong.<\/p>\n
I really think the only way to go was, \u201cHey, this is the tour that we agreed to. This is the tour that I\u2019m on with the artists that I\u2019m on. If you, Robert Kraft and other building owners, have a problem with this, then you should bring it to court and we should legally dig into it.\u201d He didn\u2019t even have to take a huge political stand. He just had to stand by the artists that he said he was with. That\u2019s all he had to do.<\/p>\n
And also feels really disingenuous because Robert Kraft made time \u2014 or whoever constructed that statement made a point to say, \u201cOh, I care about Palestinians. Oh, I respect Macklemore, this and that. I\u2019d love to talk to him.\u201d So why didn\u2019t you just talk to him?<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-rollingstone-2022\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
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What hateful language did he use? It was language that they didn\u2019t like. It wasn\u2019t hateful language.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a fair point. \u2026 I understand people being frustrated or upset that they feel like no one seemed to care about October 7th. I had those feelings at the time. I shed real tears, as I think many people did, watching videos of the Nova Music Festival and thinking about it.<\/p>\n\n\t\t\u201cMy dad was a very devout Zionist\u201d<\/strong>\t<\/h2>\n
Listen, it\u2019s a big part of my childhood. My dad was a very devout Zionist. He wrote for the Village Voice <\/em>and worked for AIPAC for several years and got to really see inside the machine. And he came away from that experience being like, \u201cOh, these people don\u2019t want peace.\u201d I mean, he was basically sort of told when he would write about more dovish, peace-loving Palestinians, they\u2019d be like, \u201cHey, we don\u2019t need that. Nobody\u2019s trying to hear about these peaceful moderates. That doesn\u2019t help our cause.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/strong>I\u2019m immensely proud of being Jewish. I married an Israeli. I\u2019m not some person who believes that Israel is cultureless and has no place. Of course it does. I mean, Israel\u2019s like so many other colonialist countries that did a lot of shitty things, but also have good things as well. And culturally, there are things that I love about it, but that doesn\u2019t change what\u2019s right is right and what\u2019s wrong is wrong.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>It is a super complicated piece of it because at first, I heard someone comment on this: the word Zionist doesn\u2019t mean anything anymore except it\u2019s just a hateful term and anybody who says it is an antisemite. I used to feel that way.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>I think you can make an argument for the place of Jews in parts of the area, but that doesn\u2019t change the fact that when they showed up, when that movement began and they\u2019re like, \u201cHey, we\u2019re going to go there now,\u201d they were not there.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>All you could do is choose to have a one-state solution with everybody having equal rights. It doesn\u2019t feel like rocket science.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, she didn\u2019t recognize that was the other way also, because this government, they love killing Palestinians. [Minister of National Security Itamar] Ben-Gvir is all he wants to do. That\u2019s the part that we also have to eliminate is exceptionalism that other people are a certain way, but not Jews. We could never be that way. Apparently we can be that way.<\/p>\n