Macklemore will donate $1m earnings from Ed Sheeran tour to organisations in Palestine

In an Instagram post on Thursday, Macklemore said he wanted to shift the conversation back to where it was supposed to be, “to the Palestinian people who are still being killed, still living under military occupation and still fighting for their freedom”.

He invited billionaire Robert Kraft to match his donation, saying, “Whatever we disagree about, perhaps we can agree on this: Palestinian lives are worth protecting.”Kraft has close philanthropic ties to Israel — to the point that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “Israel does not have a friend more loyal than Robert Kraft,” when presenting him an award in 2019.

He owns the Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts and had ’s shows at his venue would not go ahead unless Macklemore was dropped. The rapper said his speech and his stance were never about headlines and controversy, they were always about the rights of Palestinians to “freedom, dignity and safety in their own homeland”.

He said he wanted to bring attention to “the parents carrying their children into hospitals without the basic resources to treat them and physicians, paramedics, journalists and aid workers who keep going back in”.

Macklemore said writing a cheque was one of the least costly ways for him to support the people of Palestine and there were activists and organisers out there “who have paid real costs for standing with Palestine”. He said aid wasn’t enough to address the crisis fully, calling the situation in Palestine a “manmade injustice”.

He said the true need was for “political change” and that Palestinians “should not have to wait another day” for basic rights.

In his caption, Macklemore listed the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund, Heal Palestine, Gaza Soup Kitchen, Medical Aid Palestine, the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees — commonly known as UNRWA — and American Near East Refugee Aid as the six organisations he would donate his earnings to.

Kraft pledges $2m “to the region”Kraft responded to Macklemore’s post with a statement carried by Gillette Stadium’s social media accounts where he said he had already agreed to make a donation — and so had Sheeran.

In the statement, Kraft said he had “dedicated much of my life to building bridges between all people” and that he “believed deeply that all lives are worth protecting”. The businessman said Sheeran had approached him earlier to match a donation of $2m “to aid in the region”.

He said he was happy to do so and the singer was now approaching other venue owners with the same proposal. Kraft said he wanted people speaking out in favour of Palestine to know he had “supported efforts that create opportunity for Palestinians [and] brought young Palestinians and Israelis together to build businesses, create jobs and forge relationships” for decades.

These pledges come after the decision to drop Macklemore from the Loop tour caused an outcry among both fans and the entertainment industry.

Sheeran responded to the controversy on Tuesday saying he did not use his professional platform for politics and the decision to drop Macklemore wasn’t his to make — he said these matters were dealt by the tour’s promoters.

All of the singer’s supporting acts, including singer Finneas and the tour’s band Boega, decided to withdraw from future shows in solidarity with Macklemore.