The Free Palestine Movement Wants You to Bend the Knee

Ed Sheeran is facing “cancellation”, not because he said anything wrong or divisive. He’s facing backlash because, according to the “Free Palestine” movement, he did not adequately express his support for their cause.

And what is their cause?

I’ll give you a hint: it’s not to “free Palestine”.

If “Free Palestine” were an actual humanitarian movement, it would rage about the indoctrination of hate shoved into the minds of Palestinian children. Children taught to hate Jews, conditioned to die for the so-called “resistance”. A dark culture of death.

It would rage at the treatment of Palestinians at the hands of Hamas. You can literally watch videos of Palestinians being tortured and beaten in the streets of Gaza. Why are they so silent when it comes to that? Why is there so little outrage directed at the authoritarian regime that has ruled Gaza with an iron fist?

It would rage at the enormous resources poured into building a sophisticated terror-tunnel network stretching hundreds of miles—roughly half the length of the New York subway system—instead of building a city Palestinians could prosper in.

If this were a humanitarian movement, the fact that Hamas has fought from civilian areas, with fighters operating in civilian clothes, would be shouted from the rooftops. This terrorist organisation has repeatedly placed Palestinian civilians directly in harm’s way.

Why are they so silent about that?

Because this movement does not care about Palestinians first.

It cares about hating the only Jewish state.

We’ve seen the same type of mass-pressure campaigns in the past. Ones that require you to bend the knee by publicly expressing your support, or you’re automatically branded as evil. Black Lives Matter and gender ideology are good examples of this.

Any kind of nuance—or a position that doesn’t 100% affirm the ideology—is interpreted as a grave transgression.

You’ve sinned against the ideology.

Increasingly, that sin is treated as so egregious that you deserve to lose your livelihood, your reputation and, in the most extreme cases, even your life.

However, in my opinion, this “Free Palestine” movement—and the pressure it is placing on the shoulders of ordinary people and celebrities—is the worst of the lot.

It is deeply dangerous to the Western world and our societies.

Why?

Because the entire movement is built on lies.

It’s an inversion of reality.

It’s a poison pill that carries within itself hatred of the West, support for jihadism, Jew-hatred and the sacrifice of truth. It’s mass psychosis. It has become a type of cult.

A death cult.

The more Palestinians die, the more ammunition the movement has to attack Israel, which is fighting an enemy that has promised to repeat October 7 over and over again.

If this were primarily a humanitarian movement, it would have jumped at every opportunity to get Palestinian civilians out of harm’s way.

Instead, what did we get?

Outrage whenever civilians were evacuated. Outrage whenever the possibility of taking refuge in surrounding countries was proposed.

Palestinians became the one population in a war zone who were expected to remain there.

Every celebrity who publicly bends the knee gives this ideology greater legitimacy and accelerates the self-destructive nature of this lie. What worries me is that many of the people supporting this movement are either knowingly—or unknowingly—supporting something profoundly destructive.

Which brings us to Ed Sheeran.

Macklemore hijacked someone else’s stage

To put it briefly: Macklemore asked to be a supporting act for Ed Sheeran, who agreed.

But Macklemore, being the parasite that he is, used the opportunity he was given—performing in front of a crowd that wasn’t his—to make a political statement.

For two nights at MetLife Stadium, he went onstage wearing a keffiyeh, shouting about “Free Palestine” and “genocide”. He performed “Hind’s Hall” while images of Gaza played in the background.

As usual, Hamas almost completely disappeared from the story.

Anyone listening with no knowledge of the situation could be forgiven for thinking Israel woke up one morning and decided to start bombing Gaza for the fun of it.

People who go to watch Ed Sheeran are not there to hear about his—or any other act’s—political stance.

They are there for the music.

The audience is a diverse group of people, including families and children. They bought expensive tickets. Some had to find babysitters. Some travelled long distances, booking hotels and B&Bs.

As a family man myself, I completely understand the effort that goes into something like that.

Wanting to go to a concert and enjoy a bit of escapism is a completely justified position. Ed Sheeran wanting to provide that atmosphere for his fans is also completely justified.

After Macklemore’s performances, several venues made clear that they would not host the remaining shows with him on the bill, and the promoter removed him from the tour.

Somehow, Ed Sheeran became the villain.

In the eyes of the mob, refusing to transform his entire tour into a “Free Palestine” rally apparently made him complicit.

Then he folded

Sheeran initially explained that he did not want his concerts turned into political battlegrounds, that the decision to remove Macklemore ultimately belonged to the promoter, and that cancelling stadium shows would affect hundreds of thousands of fans and workers.

It did nothing but make the crowd angrier.

Then, at his Philadelphia show, he folded a little.

He called the October 7 massacre horrific. But he also described Israel’s campaign in Gaza as “catastrophic and unjustifiable and disproportionate”, spoke about civilian deaths and the West Bank, and apologised for mistakes he believed he had made in handling the controversy.

Perhaps that is genuinely what he believes.

But if he hoped this would calm the attacks on him, he was wrong.

It would have been much better for him to hold the line on the fact that his shows are not a political battleground. Because once you accept the premise that you owe the mob a political statement, there will always be another statement demanded of you.

As much as I have nothing against the guy—and I think he is largely a victim in this situation—I think he is completely wrong about the war itself.

The Israeli military campaign in Gaza was not only morally justified after October 7. It was morally necessary.

Multiple things can be true at once.

Yes, civilian deaths are deeply tragic. The devastation of Gaza is tragic.

But this was a war started by a genocidal terrorist organisation. Starting a war by massacring civilians, committing sexual violence and taking hostages, and then losing that war, does not make the war a “genocide”.

That’s insane.

Despite the devastation, and despite Hamas fighting from within one of the most difficult urban environments imaginable, Israel managed to fight this war without simply flattening Gaza on October 8th, while civilians were still in their homes.

It used evacuation orders, phone calls, text messages, leaflets, designated evacuation routes and other measures intended to move civilians away from combat zones. Israel has gone over and above what many other nations have done—or would do—in comparable urban wars in its effort to minimise civilian casualties.

Yet the simplistic story being sold is that Israel entered Gaza with the objective of slaughtering Palestinians.

That is an inversion of reality.

Meanwhile, as the world obsesses over Gaza, other catastrophes barely register.

Gillian Anderson recently used her platform to talk about Sudan.

Sudan is currently the largest humanitarian crisis on planet Earth. Tens of millions of people need humanitarian assistance. Millions have been displaced. Hunger has consumed huge parts of the country.

Yet most people scrolling through Western social media feeds could probably tell you almost nothing about it.

So Gillian Anderson tried to raise awareness of the suffering of the Sudanese people.

Do you know what appeared throughout her comment section?

People from the “Free Palestine” movement angry that she wasn’t talking about Gaza instead.

Think about how insane that is.

Someone tries to draw attention to the greatest humanitarian crisis in the world, and instead of caring about the people suffering there, your reaction is anger that she has diverted attention away from Palestine.

Like I said.

It’s a cult.

Ed Sheeran is not entirely blameless

Ed Sheeran seems like a decent person who mostly wants to make music.

But because of the actions of the parasitic opportunist Macklemore, he has now had the displeasure of facing this rabid crowd demanding obedience.

To be fair, Ed is not entirely blameless.

How could he not know the type of artist Macklemore had become? His politics were hardly a secret. Neither was the controversy surrounding the costume Macklemore wore in 2014—complete with a large hooked nose—which many Jews regarded as an antisemitic caricature.

If Sheeran knew all of that, why did he think bringing him onto a stadium tour was a good idea?

That was a mistake.

But it does not justify what followed.

Do not bend the knee

This movement will accept nothing but complete obedience.

Things are only going to get worse.

The pressure on politicians, celebrities and ordinary people is only going to become more intense. The mass psychosis will spread further if people continue rewarding it.

The answer is not to continually produce better-worded statements proving that you care.

The answer is to refuse to bend the knee.

Stop apologising for refusing to accept a lie.

Stop allowing accusations of hatred to frighten people into silence.

Stop treating a movement as humanitarian simply because it has wrapped itself in the language of human rights.

If a political movement demands your public obedience, punishes neutrality, excuses jihadism, treats Jewish self-defence as uniquely evil and needs Palestinian suffering to sustain its narrative, then feeding it more obedience will not make it disappear.

It will make it stronger.

Ed Sheeran’s mistake was believing there was a statement he could make that would satisfy the mob.

There isn’t.

So stop trying.

Do not bend the knee.