Ed Sheeran’s statement on Gaza ignores Hamas and misses the point - opinion

Hiding behind stadium owners, who ultimately pulled the plug on further concerts, would not cut it.

Consequently, the pop singer had to weigh in, one way or another, letting everyone know where he personally stood on the events that unfolded after politics entered his concert.

His statement read, in part, “I have tried, in my career, not to be a political commentator of any kind, because I want my music and shows to be about unity, not division; about humanity, not politics.

“What is happening in Gaza is catastrophic, unjustifiable, and disproportionate. My heart has been broken by the scale of devastation and loss of civilians’ lives, of children’s lives.”

The meticulously calculated statement, undoubtedly penned by the masterful hand of a well-paid professional wordsmith, worked hard to appear equally sympathetic and sensitive.

But when speaking about the pain and devastation associated with Israel and Gaza, the absence of all reference to Hamas is not accidental.

Because endeavoring to sound fair and balanced and overlooking the principal cause of suffering by obscuring the perpetrator is like saying October 7 was the work of spontaneous combustion – a fire that sparked with no external help.

The pain and devastation, over which Sheeran lamented, was the careful planning of a Jewish genocide that took over 20 years to come to fruition.

Plotted and conspired to wreak maximum carnage on Israeli citizens, including the burning of their communities, organized looting, and even the killing of innocent animals, this onslaught carried the message that there will never be peace and coexistence from their side.

All that can be expected is the annihilation which they have sworn to carry out, no matter how long it takes.

For Sheeran to miss that glaring point is to actually say nothing of consequence.

In his attempt to avoid the “elephant in the room,” the singer stepped into the excrement of dishonesty, all the more by trying to cleverly avoid the unpleasant but necessary truth that must accompany the events surrounding October 7.

By avoiding it, he pleases neither side and comes off as an unprepared, ill-equipped buffoon who had to outsource his opinion to a skilled professional.

But the most articulate sentiments and heartfelt prose would have still come up short, without rightly attributing the blame to the evil, cruel monsters who have no shred of humanity flowing through their veins.

Did Sheeran put his fame over his own sense of justice, or is he so indifferent and apathetic to what goes on in the Middle East that he couldn’t find a few spare minutes to get properly schooled on what took place, including the two-decade lead-up to the worst massacre of the Jewish people since the Holocaust?

And what do we take from all of this?

It is the extreme shallowness of a person who achieved personal importance through his music but has chosen not to exercise his brainpower when it comes to what should have been an impactful statement, filled with knowledge, wisdom, and understanding.

Sheeran surely knows what would happen to his bottom line should he have chosen to do the right thing and find out for himself, rather than follow in the footsteps of his entertainment peers.

Sadly, today's artists mostly seem to be the same repetitive reproductive models, spewing the same well-practiced narrative, which takes great care to make them look like sympathetic, caring humans who are unable to bear the thought of injustice.

If only that were true.

But when real inequities and suffering are everywhere in sight, including the plight of the Uyghurs, the nearly half-century oppression that’s been ongoing for the Iranian people, and so many other desperate, inhumane situations worldwide, one can only wonder how it is that only Palestinians get all the attention and sympathy?

This might be a guess, but it likely has something to do with a manufactured way to strike at the Jewish people and their homeland.

By accusing Israel of a disproportionate reaction after the 20-year planning of a genocide, with the intent to displace Jews from their land, there is an attempt to immediately throw the blame back at them.

But this shift of guilt is a losing strategy because, in its refusal to acknowledge the authors of the original destruction, clear-thinking people will see right through the dishonest and false comparison that tries to set everything and everyone on a level playing field.

In the case of October 7, there is no moral equivalence between Hamas murderers and the innocent Israelis who didn’t even have a chance to wake up from their Shabbat morning sleep.

There is no moral equivalence between those who lit whole families on fire and the cries of the Shema, which were, undoubtedly, the final prayers spoken by those whose lives were being snuffed out.

And if Ed Sheeran thinks otherwise, then he is not worthy of anyone’s adulation, no matter how sweet the melodic sounds of his voice.

While he is not the only star too cowardly to risk his fame, he is the latest in a string of many others whose conscience cannot be bothered to delve deep into the truth of what has happened over the last three years.

But to those of us who do know, we can only categorize Sheeran’s statement as disingenuous and as artificial as he has made himself to be.