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It has been<\/span> an excellent 48 hours for Schadenfreude.<\/p>\n Unprincipled pop star Ed Sheeran dropped principled pop star Macklemore from his U.S. stadium tour, following pressure from rabidly pro-Israel billionaire stadium owner Robert Kraft<\/a> over Macklemore\u2019s wholly anodyne on-stage calls to free Palestine.<\/p>\n Macklemore has been loudly calling for an end to the genocide for over two years; it was only when facing the loss of future revenue that Sheeran asked his longtime friend to leave the tour.<\/p>\n Now, Sheeran is in a well-deserved pickle<\/a>.<\/p>\n Every single one of his other support acts, including his backing band Beoga, have quit the tour in solidarity with Macklemore. Finneas, Danish group Lukas Graham, Aaron Rowe, and Beoga explicitly condemned the silencing of Palestine solidarity.<\/p>\n \u201cI have decided to withdraw from my upcoming tour dates with Ed Sheeran. I stand with Palestine and its people,\u201d Finneas said in a statement.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Sheeran has been widely lambasted for his spinelessness.<\/p>\n \u201cImagine being a Palestinian kid and seeing he did a concert for Ukraine but when over 20,000 Palestinian children are killed he\u2019s silent,\u201d wrote<\/a> beloved children\u2019s entertainer Ms. Rachel<\/a> on Instagram, referencing Sheeran\u2019s 2022 performance<\/a> raising funds for Ukraine after Russia\u2019s invasion.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The backlash facing Sheeran has been a pleasure to observe. Seeing unscrupulous claims to purported apolitical neutrality revealed as hypocrisy and cowardice is validating.<\/p>\n Something bigger, too, may be unfolding. The response to Sheeran could mark a long, long overdue sea change in popular culture around Palestinian solidarity.<\/p>\n Under the current paradigm, speaking out <\/a>against Israel\u2019s genocide and occupation<\/a> has been extremely costly<\/a> for celebrities<\/a>. The case of Macklemore and Sheeran should herald an era in which, instead, devaluing Palestinian lives is deemed a career liability.<\/p>\n \u201cThe reason most famous artists continue to stay silent on the genocide in Palestine is simple: they\u2019re afraid speaking up will lose them money,\u201d wrote<\/a> comedian Sammy Obeid on X. \u201cSo the solution is simple: make their silence even more unprofitable.\u201d<\/p>\n The logic of economic boycotts \u2014 from South Africa<\/a> to the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions<\/a> movement \u2014 is to extract material costs for participation in oppressive regimes.<\/p>\n Sheeran is not a BDS target. The movement is explicit<\/a> about only targeting select corporations and institutions that \u201cplay a clear and direct role in Israel\u2019s crimes against Palestinians.\u201d But l\u2019affaire Sheeran, as it has unfolded so far, may nonetheless affirm the logic of BDS.<\/p>\n The point is that Sheeran\u2019s actions once again treated anti-Palestinian censorship as an uncontroversial norm, and the path of least resistance. The reaction to Sheeran suggests that, at the very least, after three years of livestreamed genocide<\/a>, this norm is finally losing its hold in the cultural mainstream.<\/p>\n So far, Sheeran has not canceled his tour. He will likely be able to find scab artists to step in and replace his opening acts and supporting band.<\/p>\n Given the public furor over his dropping Macklemore, however, musicians will be weary of backlash for stepping in. Indeed, it\u2019s likely only explicitly pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian artists who would; Sheeran can\u2019t help himself to the lie of neutrality anymore. <\/p>\n And now none of his chosen musicians will perform with him, despite describing him as a friend. It is his position that they have deemed unacceptable.<\/p>\n The backlash arrives as such a relief only because the so-called Palestinian exception<\/a> to free speech has been so thoroughly normalized.<\/p>\n Yet even if this does mark a watershed moment for mainstream culture, it can hardly be called a victory as the genocide in Gaza continues<\/a> and West Bank<\/a> pogroms escalate.<\/p>\n Donald Trump this week approved a $2.8 billion arms sale<\/a> to Israel, including 40,000 one-ton bombs renowned for mass civilian annihilation. The stakes of Ed Sheeran\u2019s tour pale in comparison.<\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s unimportant. Israel\u2019s impunity-drenched eliminationist project has always relied on international disregard for Palestinian lives and mainstream accordance with pernicious and false pro-Israel narratives about Jewish safety<\/a>. Every effort, in every sphere, to end that status quo should be celebrated and escalated.<\/p>\nThe Real Stakes<\/h2>\n