What do Ed Sheeran, Eurovision, Berlin local elections, and an attack on a Canadian synagogue have in common? In a word – Gaza.
Gaza has gone beyond being a conflict point on the map – a tiny pinpoint – to becoming a dangerous ideology.
Last week, Ireland’s national broadcaster RTE announced it would boycott the Eurovision song contest for a second year in a row because Israel, which was runner-up two years running, is still intent on competing and still committed to fighting terrorism in Gaza and elsewhere. The Emerald Isle is also trying to kick the Jewish state out of European and world football competitions.
Ireland skipped last year’s Eurovision along with Iceland, the Netherlands, Spain, and Slovenia. The Dutch this week announced it would return to the competition with a different broadcast company, but the Spanish national broadcaster is threatening to stay away from the contest again.
Eurovision will be held in May in the Bulgarian city of Burgas. There are people with such short memories or so little compassion that they’ve forgotten the Hamas-led invasion and mega-atrocity of October 7, 2023 – in which 1,200 were killed, 251 abducted, and thousands wounded in southern Israel, sparking the war in which Israel struck back at Gaza.
They probably don’t remember, or don’t care, that there was a Hezbollah-led terror attack in the Bulgarian Black Sea resort in 2012, where five Israelis and their bus driver were murdered. A direct line connects the two attacks, linking them to Iran.
Gaza setting international culture
Ireland’s absence from Eurovision is no loss, but it demonstrates the absurdity of the current situation – the international cultural bon ton is being set by the supporters of a jihadist, genocidal, terrorist group in Gaza.
Ironically, the chances of a member of the openly gay and trans Eurovision crowd surviving more than a few minutes in Hamas-controlled territory – even if they are wearing a keffiyeh and waving an Irish passport – are about as high as Iran’s supreme leader coming out of hiding to praise the Jewish state.
But it’s Irish singer Ed Sheeran who’s taken a hit recently. He proved you just can’t win when it comes to Gaza psychosis. Sheeran included rapper Macklemore as an opening act on his current tour.
Macklemore, who has previously performed dressed in stereotypical antisemitic guise – fake nose, black wig, and bushy beard and all – warmed up to the theme of Gaza, to the discomfort of those in the audience who had planned an evening out listening to Sheeran’s crooning rather than Macklemore’s pro-Palestinian screed.
When New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft said Macklemore’s act would not be welcome at his Gillette Stadium, and other stadium venues followed suit, Sheeran dropped the divisive singer. But instead of putting an end to the issue, other members of his retinue and supporting acts then refused to perform. So much for the show must go on.
Sheeran committed the ultimate crime, posting on Instagram that his audiences “do not expect a political forum.” Apparently, it’s not enough to just perform his much-loved songs; Sheeran – and any other artist who wants a place on the global stage – is expected to recite pro-Gaza, anti-Israel chants.
Following the Macklemore incident, English singer Paloma Faith told Channel 4 that she tells her children “Free Palestine” before bed every night. It seems a bizarre bedtime prayer for kids aged nine, six, and six months, living thousands of miles away from the conflict and with no connection other than their mother’s obsession.
Israeli activist Hen Mazzig noted that when actress Gillian Anderson posted a humanitarian plea for War Child about the victims of the famine in Sudan, many of the comments blasted her for not mentioning Gaza. Gaza is not only the fashionable cause – it’s the only acceptable cause.
As Spiked chief political editor Brendan O’Neill wrote: “The whole [Sheeran] affair speaks to the cultish core of Palestinianism. It really has become a neo-religion, seeking to conquer every nook and cranny of public life… It’s relentless…
“Here’s the truth: Gaza mania is a movement not for liberation but for conquest…”
Spiked editor Tom Slater summed it up: “All of this confirms what has been clear for some time – that Palestinianism is now a cult masquerading as humanitarian concern for the people of Gaza.
“And I don’t mean that as a metaphor. I mean it’s literally a cult. The insistence we mouth their slogans. The vitriol sprayed at anyone who deviates from the group’s monomania. All it’s missing is the charismatic leader, certainly since the IDF popped their beloved [Yahya] Sinwar.”
When Sheeran finally came back on-stage last Saturday, he told the audience that he’d “made mistakes,” and, trying to be even-handed, he called October 7 “horrific,” while decrying the war in Gaza as “catastrophic and unjustifiable and disproportionate.”
Fortunately, not everyone is willing to be silenced. Boy George this week announced he will perform in Israel in November. The singer has previously bravely spoken against the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, and released the song “We Will Dance Again,” referring to the survivors of the Supernova music festival on October 7, where more than 370 people were massacred.
When the UN General Assembly recently passed a resolution to encourage the use of a revised form of the world map more accurately reflecting the size of the African continent, it might have got it wrong. It’s Gaza, not Africa, that dominates the world picture.
A local election should be just that – local. But that was in the days before collective Gaza-think set in. Now, in cities like Britain’s Birmingham and Germany’s Berlin, “Free Palestine” is as much a platform as “cheap housing.”
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who threatened to have Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrested on his way to addressing the UN General Assembly, is not alone.
This week, Berlin’s Die Linke (The Left), led by Elif Eralp, enjoyed an election win big enough to potentially put her on the path to forming a coalition to govern the German capital. The daughter of Turkish migrants, Eralp has attracted a strong pro-Palestinian crowd.
As The Media Line reported: Die Linke candidate Basem Said shared an Instagram appeal by Palestinian extremist Majed Abusalama, calling the election a “Wahlintifada,” “election intifada.”
At the same time, other parts of Germany have seen the rise of the far-Right AfD. Neither extremist stream bodes well for the world.
Like other ideologies – Nazism, Stalinism, Marxism, Maoism – there’s no room for dissent in Palestinianism. Speaking out against the true horrors is not allowed and swiftly punished. Not voicing support for Gaza’s terrorist regime is enough to get an artist canceled, “Gazalighted.”
It’s the same mentality that enabled the audience of the Venice International Film Festival to mindlessly clap for nearly 25 minutes after the distorted, anti-Israel film NAZA won the Special Jury Prize earlier this month.
The constant delegitimization and demonization of Israel and the Jews comes at a deadly price. On the eve of Yom Kippur, Natanel Shukrun, a father of six, was shot to death by a Palestinian terrorist near a natural spring in the Binyamin region, where he and his eldest son, who witnessed the murder, had gone to bathe before the holiday.
The terrorist was shot by a soldier, preventing greater casualties, and was later arrested after initially escaping. It was the third lethal attack by Palestinians in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) this year – attacks you don’t hear about in the chorus of “settler violence.”
Under a new trade sanction that came into force this week, the Netherlands will ban the import, purchase, and sale of goods from “unlawful Israeli settlements.” The maximum penalty is up to six years in prison. No lives will be saved by imprisoning somebody for selling Israeli dates and wine in Amsterdam, especially while Palestinian terrorists are rewarded for attacks under the PA’s “pay-for-slay” policy.
On Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year, a Canadian man shot at a synagogue in Belleville, Ontario. He was neutralized by police officer Jeff Smith, who was critically wounded, before he could commit the massacre he planned.
Last year, two Jews were murdered in the UK on Yom Kippur in a terror attack on a Manchester synagogue. This year, on the eve of the holiday, police arrested two suspects planning another attack on the Manchester Jewish community.
Nobody will die because Ed Sheeran chooses to stand on a stage and sing “Perfect.” An opening act chanting “Free Palestine” and falsely accusing Israel of genocide, however, sets the stage for more violence.