OPINION:
Singer Ed Sheeran’s recent remarks at his Philadelphia concert — where he broke his self-professed political silence to address Israel’s fight to eliminate the Hamas terrorists in Gaza — reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of Israel’s strategic and moral imperatives.
Delivering what was clearly a prepared statement while attempting to pass it off as an impromptu moment of reflection, Mr. Sheeran instead weaponized a deeply flawed narrative.
When he condemned Israel’s military operations as “catastrophic and unjustifiable and disproportionate,” he echoed the harmful accusation that Israel is driven by a need for revenge. This premise is entirely false. Israel’s objective since the atrocities of Oct. 7, 2023, has never been retribution; it has always been the complete removal of an existential terrorist threat to Israelis.
Worse, Mr. Sheeran’s framing echoes some of the darkest periods of anti-Jewish sentiment in British cultural history. By painting the Jewish state as an unreasoning, bloodthirsty aggressor, his rhetoric mimics the worst classic antisemitic caricatures of British literature — from Shakespeare’s Shylock to Dickens’ Fagin.
Israel operates out of strategic defense and national survival and nothing else. If the Israeli government were truly governed by a motivation for vengeance, it would not have accepted Mahmoud Abbas, who leads the terrorist Palestine Liberation Organization, to serve as president of the Palestinian Authority for over two decades.
The ongoing political existence and governance of the PA under Mr. Abbas directly refutes the notion that Israeli policy is dictated by indiscriminate revenge.
Pop stars reading prepared statements from a stadium stage may garner headlines, but they obscure the realities of a nation defending its people against terrorism. When Mrs. Sheeran and Macklemore use dangerous historical tropes and level unfounded moral charges against a country fighting for its security, we are again reminded of the danger of allowing entertainers to preach values.
MOSHE PHILLIPS
National chairman, Americans For A Safe Israel
New York, New York
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