[Baltimore Sun] Armstrong Williams: Macklemore and the anti-Israel crowd deserve our scorn | STAFF COMMENTARY
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At the recent “Palestine Will Live Forever” festival in Seattle, the rapper Macklemore said, to the cheers of his adoring crowd, “F— America.”
This was a perfect encapsulation of his and the anti-Israel movement’s utter moral depravity. They use the fig leaf of the Palestinian cause to mask their true motivations, which are not only anti-Israel but antisemitic and anti-American.
That explains the sheer viciousness and hatefulness of the movement. No other foreign policy issue is reacted to with such palpable fury.
Macklemore’s antisemitism is obvious. Ten years ago, he dressed up as a stereotypical Jew, complete with a fake hooked nose, while performing his song “Thrift Shop.” His apology and assertion that it was a “random costume” are entirely unconvincing.
This past May, Macklemore came out with a song called “Hind’s Hall,” in reference to the occupied and vandalized Hamilton Hall at Columbia University, which radicals “renamed” Hind’s Hall after a six-year-old girl killed in Gaza.
The lyrics accuse Israel of genocide — a malicious lie — and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee of having politicians in its pocket.
A sequel to the song (“Hind’s Hall 2”) also accuses Israel of genocide and buying pro-Israel sentiment. It lauds “martyrdom” and uncompromising violence and employs the hackneyed, but beloved, phrase: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” This mantra expresses the desire to ethnically cleanse Israel.
In the song, Macklemore says, “We know who you serve at the White House” (the Jews), “long live the resistance” (meaning Hamas), and “there’ll never be freedom by pleading with Zionists.”
Macklemore deserves our scorn and contempt. In dressing like a Jew out of the pages of Der Stürmer, and in perpetuating antisemitic tropes while inciting violence in his music, he has shown his true colors.
It shocks the conscience.
“F— America”? Macklemore’s very success is due to the opportunity that this country has provided him.
Macklemore and the radicals who profess to care about the Palestinians have laid their cards on the table.
Look at the anti-Israel protesters, waving Hamas and Hezbollah flags. Never do they wave the American flag. That flag they burn. That flag they tear down and trample. I have seen them deface monuments with my own eyes.
The protesters are not against Israel because they cherish America and its values. They are against Israel because they despise America and its values.
You can judge a person by the company he or she keeps, or by whom he or she admires. These demonstrators hold aloft not only the flags of murderous terrorist organizations but portraits of Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the Oct. 7 massacres; Ismail Haniyeh, the assassinated political leader of Hamas; and Hamas spokesman Abu Obaida.
It tells you everything you need to know about them.
It has never occurred to them that if they really cared about Palestinians’ lives, they would be protesting Hamas, which oppresses Palestinians and endangers their lives by starting wars and using them as human shields.
Hamas didn’t build tunnels for Palestinian civilians but for themselves. And they did so after stealing humanitarian aid. Hamas does not care about Palestinian civilians at all, except insofar as they can use their suffering and deaths to demonize Israel.
But the protesters’ and Macklemore’s ire is directed solely at Israel and the United States.
These are profoundly foolish people, intellectually and morally. Their vacuousness is evident — for all their righteous anger about liberating Palestine from the river to the sea, many of them don’t even know which river and sea they are screaming about.
But this isn’t about facts. It’s about feelings. And it feels good to be self-righteously angry. Even when you have no idea what you are talking about.
The Macklemores and the anti-Israel protesters of the world will support anyone who similarly hates America, even if that anyone stands against everything they claim to stand for (women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, human rights in general), so long as that anyone is from the exotic Third World.
What they say about Israel is vicious.
I have been to Israel dozens of times; I know that country and I know its people. It is an open, dynamic, noble society. It is a peace-loving society that again and again has had war thrust upon it.
Be wary of Macklemore and his ilk. They know nothing, help no one, and provide moral support for terrorism and mass murder. They ought to be ashamed of themselves.
And they should be rejected by all decent people.
Armstrong Williams (www.armstrongwilliams.com; @arightside) is a political analyst, syndicated columnist and owner of the broadcasting company Howard Stirk Holdings. He is also part owner of The Baltimore Sun.
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