An 80,000-capacity stadium, footage from Gaza playing on the screens, and a figure onstage wearing a keffiyeh. This wasn't a protest scene—it was the opening act at Ed Sheeran's "Loop" tour stop at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.
Macklemore repeated the same gesture during his opening slot on two consecutive nights—September 4 and September 5. He told the crowd he wanted people in Gaza and the West Bank to know "they haven't been forgotten," adding that "everyone walking on this land deserves the same freedom." He then named Cuba, Congo, Sudan, Iran, and "Americans living in fear because of the terrorist organization known as ICE," before performing his 2024 pro-Palestinian single "Hind's Hall," with Gaza-related footage playing on the screens behind him.
The song's title comes from Columbia University's Hamilton Hall, which pro-Palestinian student activists renamed "Hind's Hall" in memory of Hind Rajab, a young girl killed by Israeli forces in Gaza. When the song was released, Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello called it "the most Rage Against The Machine song since Rage Against The Machine." That same year, Macklemore released a follow-up track featuring Palestinian-American singers Anees and Amer Zahr, Gaza-born rapper MC Abdul, and the Palestinian Youth Choir of Los Angeles.
Following the performance, the Israeli-American Council (IAC) launched a petition urging Sheeran and his management team to remove Macklemore from the tour's remaining dates. The petition states, "The organizers of this concert are using a global concert platform to push a one-sided political agenda," emphasizing that "this is Ed Sheeran's concert—not a political rally, not a protest, and not an activist event."
The petition further argues that the issue isn't political expression itself, but that "these messages rely on selective imagery and one-sided narratives presented as fact to a massive audience, without context or complexity." The IAC has also demanded that Sheeran's team clarify whether Macklemore's political remarks, visuals, and the performance of "Hind's Hall" were approved in advance, and called for clear boundaries around political messaging on the tour's stage.
As of now, neither Sheeran nor Macklemore has publicly responded to the petition.
On the question of Gaza, a United Nations commission of inquiry concluded last year that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, recently stating that attacks targeting children indicate the genocide is ongoing. Amnesty International has reached the same conclusion. Israel has repeatedly denied committing genocide or war crimes, maintaining that its military operations are acts of self-defense in response to the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on the Nova music festival—which killed 344 civilians and 34 security personnel, with 44 people taken hostage. Israel has also rejected the UN's findings, calling them a "distorted and false" and "defamatory hoax."
