Macklemore Is Not the Victim

By Noah Rothman

Wednesday, September 16, 2026

 

If the recording artist Macklemore had only made “pro-Palestinian comments” from the stage during his performances, as the terminally incurious seem to have convinced themselves, it would be harder to defend Gillette Stadium owner Robert Kraft’s decision to bar the performer from his venue. But that’s not what happened here — despite the spectacle of musicians attached to Ed Sheeran’s tour, for whom the rapper had been opening, quitting in protest.

 

“To all of my Jewish brothers and sisters,” Macklemore lectured from the MetLife Stadium stage earlier this month, “criticism of Israel, criticism of apartheid, being against genocide in no way is a criticism of you.” He continued with a lament over the war in Gaza that’s been checked by a tenuous cease-fire for almost a year. Still, the excessively charitable might conclude that the artist merely exudes an excess of empathy. And yet, the distinctions Macklemore is making between Jews and Israelis are differences he rarely observes.

 

At that same performance, Macklemore performed a song he has called “Hind’s Hall,” which celebrates the occupation of a Columbia University facility by anti-Israel activists shortly after the October 7 massacre. There, he also thanked the radical activist groups with which he is aligned: Jewish Voice for Peace, Students for Justice in Palestine, and Columbia University Apartheid Divest.

 

That last group, CUAD, explicitly endorsed the 10/7 slaughter. “We support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance,” the group said in a statement in which it withdrew its apology on behalf of a Columbia student who said that “Zionists don’t deserve to live.” The outfit, co-founded by the Democratic nominee for Congress in New York’s 13th district, Darializa Avila Chevalier, is consistent in its support for violence against the West, including America. CUAD’s stated organizing principles include backing efforts to “undermine and eradicate America” by translating “resistance in Gaza to unrest and violence in America.”

 

That more than justifies Kraft’s claim that Macklemore’s “history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery” — which, by the way, includes exhibition of the antisemitic equivalent of minstrelsy — would not be consistent with Gillette Stadium’s “commitment to providing a welcoming environment” that does “not provide a platform for hate speech.”

 

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez disagrees:

 

 

Kraft didn’t just bar Macklemore from his stadiums, AOC complained. He used his influence to “line up all the stadiums to censor speech in that one specific way,” which suggests to her that “it’s become clear it’s not just about one music artist or two music artists.” Rather, “this is about how just a handful of stadium owners, and the elite, can prevent an entire massive issue — in this case, the genocide in Gaza.”

 

There are two problems with AOC’s remarks. The first is that there is no genocide in Gaza. The second is that AOC has no principled objection to chilling the speech that she doesn’t like.

 

The representative endorsed the grassroots left-wing campaign to banish Goya Foods products from grocery store shelves, for example, after its CEO sang Donald Trump’s praises during a White House event in 2020. “Oh look, it’s the sound of me Googling ‘how to make your own Adobo,’” she wrote amid that particular mania.

 

Nor did she appear conflicted when she applied as much pressure as possible to the New York Times over its editorial decision to publish an op-ed from Senator Tom Cotton calling for a crackdown on the ongoing riots that erupted across the country that summer. Equating the op-ed to a call for an American version of the “Tiananmen Square” massacre, she tore into then-Times editor James Bennet. Bennet resigned over the fracas, and other Times staffers joined him after they “received threats” for doing their jobs. The record does not reflect AOC’s anguish over the ordeal to which she helped consign them.

 

Ocasio-Cortez is, however, consistent in opposing the cancellation of her political allies, particularly when they engage in antisemitic offenses. Take Ilhan Omar.

 

Adopting a preacher’s cadence and with the liberal application of manic gesticulations, AOC railed against a 2023 effort by the Republican House majority to strip Omar of her committee assignments (hardly the first time the majority party, Democratic or Republican, has tried to censure Omar) over her historic penchant for antisemitic remarks.

 

“Consistency?” she barked. “There is nothing consistent with the Republican Party’s continued attacks, except for the racism and incitement of violence against women of color in this body!”

 

If “consistency” is the order of the day, it’s not hard to see a pattern here. “You don’t see me complaining [about] ‘cancel culture,’” she tweeted in 2020. Indeed, she insisted, cancel culture is a phenomenon only she and her allies experience. What her adversaries complain about isn’t “cancel culture” at all. Rather, it’s the experience of overdue accountability:

 

 

It’s tempting to accuse Ocasio-Cortez of hypocrisy, but every double standard betrays an unexpressed single standard. AOC doesn’t have a problem with cancellation per se. (Some who experience cancellation are themselves guilty of having “long denied a fair hearing” to, for example, “Palestinian human rights advocates.” They’re just getting what they deserve.) Her problem is with the cancellation of radical “anti-Zionist” activism, even the sort that endorses anti-Jewish violence.

 

There is room to debate the prudence of Kraft’s maneuver. His efforts to sideline Macklemore inspired his fellow artists to express solidarity with him, casting Macklemore as the victim in this whole affair. But in AOC’s own formulation, that’s not cancel culture; it’s just being “held accountable” for one’s words and deeds.

 

At least, that’s the ticket when American Jews are on the receiving end of it.