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Las Vegas Festival Drops Macklemore, Seattle Sports Teams Evaluate Ties to Rapper After He Says ‘F–k America’
Macklemore performs at Alcatraz Milan on May 3, 2023 in Milan, Italy. Photo: Roberto Finizio via Reuters Connect
Organizers of an inaugural music, art, and culinary festival that will take place in downtown Las Vegas in November said on Tuesday that Grammy-winning rapper Macklemore will no longer be one of the event’s headliners “due to unforeseen circumstances.”
Organizers of the Neon City Festival made the announcement in an Instagram post after Macklemore, whose real name is Benjamin Hammond Haggerty, shouted “F—k America!” during his performance at the Palestine Will Love Forever Festival in Seattle on Sunday. His comment garnered massive applause from the audience, and the Seattle-based rapper also told the crowd gathered in Seward Park Amphitheater that Israel has been committing “a genocide since 1948,” a reference to the year the state of Israel was established.
All proceeds from the pro-Palestinian event will be given to various groups, including the controversial United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which faced allegations that several of its employees participated in the Oct. 7 deadly Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel.
The Neon City Festival will run free for all ages from Nov. 22-24. Macklemore was one of the festival’s headlining acts when they were first announced by organizers on Friday. They include the rock band Neon Trees, Australian DJ Alison Wonderland, DJ Seven Lions, and country artist Russell Dickerson. The festival’s full lineup will be announced this week.
Organizers of the festival made the announcement about the cancellation of Macklemore’s performance a day after two Seattle-based sports teams issued a joint statement distancing themselves from the rapper. Macklemore is a part owner of the NHL’s Seattle Kraken and MLS’s Seattle Sounders FC. Both teams released a joint statement on Monday about Macklemore’s comments over the weekend.
“We believe that sports bring people together and unite us. We are aware of Macklemore’s increasingly divisive comments, and they do not reflect the values of our respective ownership groups, leagues, or organizations. We are currently evaluating our collective options on this matter,” the teams said.
In May, Macklemore released a song called “Hind’s Hall,” which praises college students in the US for participating in anti-Israel protests on university campuses amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. In the song he also accuses Israel of genocide and occupation, and implies that the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks were an act of “resistance.” The track’s title is a reference to Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall, the building that anti-Israel student protesters broke into and occupied in April and renamed “Hind’s Hall” in honor of Hind Rajab — a child killed in Gaza during the ongoing war. All proceeds from the song went to UNRWA.
Macklemore released on Friday “Hind’s Hall 2” and the track features Palestinian-American artists Anees and Amer Zahr, Gaza-born rapper MC Abdul, and the Los Angeles Palestinian Kids Choir. The featured performers sing on the track “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a slogan that is widely interpreted as a call for the destruction of Israel, which is located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and for it to replaced with “Palestine.”
In “Hind’s Hall 2,” Macklemore raps: “Long live the resistance if there’s something to resist/Had enough of you motherf—ers murdering little kids/PC for a minute I was trying to be a bridge/But there’ll never be freedom by pleading with Zionists/World screaming, ‘Free Palestine’/We seen the manual we know how you colonized.”
Macklemore also criticizes US support for Israel in the track. At one point he directs attention to US Vice President and 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and raps: “Hey Kamala, I don’t know if you’re listening/But stop sending money and weapons or you ain’t winning … When will Congress decide a Palestinian’s life/Is just as precious as an Israeli’s.”
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Treasure Trove: An Israeli stamp reflects the complex mix of emotions about Oct. 7
Michelle Shalmiev was born in a village in the Caucasian mountains and immigrated to Israel and settled on a kibbutz when she was 14. Her series “Putting Your Stamp on History” […]
The post Treasure Trove: An Israeli stamp reflects the complex mix of emotions about Oct. 7 appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Download a special Oct. 7 print edition of The Canadian Jewish News
Printable obituaries of eight Canadian victims and more of our original coverage.
The post Download a special Oct. 7 print edition of The Canadian Jewish News appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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The Jewish People Perform Another Miracle
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is seen addressing supporters, in Beirut, Lebanon. Photo: Reuters.
JNS.org – This Oct. 7 will not only be an anniversary of tears, of pure contrition, even if the memory is burning as the people of Israel live. As to how, it wasn’t at all obvious. Our whole history is made of miracles—from the splitting of the sea to escape from the Egyptians to the Inquisition to the pogroms to the thousand other genocidal attacks to which the Jews have been subjected. In every case, the results are always incredible and surprising, especially for how we have emerged active, faithful to our Torah tradition and committed to the return to Jerusalem until we made it happen.
The War of Independence in 1948 was fought by concentration-camp veterans, yet we defeated all the Arab armies, united in hatred, who marched against us. Later, in 1967, 1973 wars were won by a hair’s breadth with miraculous strokes of imagination and leaders who gave birth to ideas that people would have expected. No one would have ever bet a euro, penny or shekel on the idea that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and his entire hierarchy could be eliminated, petrifying Iran, especially since we have already reduced its other favorite proxy, Hamas, to pieces. And now we have bombed Iran’s other proxy, the Houthis, some 2,000 kilometers away, destroying the airport from which they receive their weapons and aid from the ayatollahs. The Islamic Republic’s leader, Ali Khamenei, is reportedly hiding underground, the Iraqi and Syrian Shi’ites are waiting to see if they are next, and cities controlled by Tehran are shaking.
As President Joe Biden said, it is a measure of justice, but one that Israel has undertaken in an impossible fashion, defending its citizens amid a thousand prohibitions with determination and without fear. Only in this way can a 76-year-old young state, which has been attacked from all sides, defend itself. The country’s existence is the latest chapter in the history of a people born many millennia ago in the Land of Israel, who are finally back home and defending their state.
The war is certainly not over, as Hezbollah reportedly had 100,000 fighters. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows that he must see this fight through to the end, despite the international pressure to which Israel has been subjected for nearly a year. Israel’s leadership understands that its very existence is at definitive risk if there is no “new Middle East” in the aftermath of Oct. 7.
While previous generations and Israeli leaders hoped that peace agreements would establish peace in the region, today’s leaders know that there is also a need for battle to stop those who, dominated by absurd fanatical and religious beliefs, wish to kill you. (After all, what do the Houthi rebels in Yemen have to do with the Jews and Israel?)
This is the lesson of our time—not just for Israel and the Jewish people but for everyone. The Jewish people are writing a new page in history, one in which the free world must write and fight alongside them, as it is a battle for the survival of Western ideals. Israel has eliminated the two most dangerous terrorist groups in the world—Hamas and Hezbollah—with operations that will set a precedent for decades. And it challenges Iran. I would like to hear the applause, please.
The post The Jewish People Perform Another Miracle first appeared on Algemeiner.com.