For decades, Israel’s greatest advantage in the West was not simply military or political support. It was narrative power.
Israel and its supporters enjoyed enormous influence over the boundaries of acceptable discussion about Palestine: which violent incident received attention, whose security mattered the most, which historical context was relevant and, crucially, what criticism of Israel could be allowed in public.
That power has not disappeared. But the extraordinary controversy surrounding Macklemore’s removal from Ed Sheeran’s US tour shows how rapidly it is eroding.
The fact that the American rapper was dropped from the tour after he spoke about Palestine on stage meant that the old system worked. A powerful billionaire objected. Venues applied pressure. The artist disappeared from the stage.
What was different this time was the backlash.
In response to the censorship, every remaining support act on Sheeran’s tour walked away. Finneas, Lukas Graham, Aaron Rowe and Beoga all withdrew. Meanwhile, ticket prices for Sheeran’s remaining concerts plunged, in some cases losing 50 percent of their value, as many fans felt outraged.
Macklemore stood his ground and pledged the $1m he had earned from his appearances to six organisations supporting Palestinians. Subsequently, the media reported Sheeran would donate $2m towards humanitarian relief in the region.
All of this has helped generate further donations and attention for Palestinian aid organisations, including a $1m pledge from children’s educator Ms Rachel.
Consider what happened.
An attempt to push “Free Palestine” off the stage resulted in Palestine receiving vastly more attention, artists abandoning one of the world’s biggest tours and more funds being donated to Palestinian organisations.
The attempt to control the message amplified the message itself. And that tells us something much bigger than how controversy is handled in the music industry.
Amid its genocide in Gaza, Israel is facing a crisis not simply of public opinion, but of narrative control.
For almost three years, the world has watched Palestinians killed, displaced and starved. It has seen neighbourhoods flattened, hospitals overwhelmed and families repeatedly driven from one place to another. A United Nations Commission of Inquiry has concluded that Israel committed genocide in Gaza. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The old narrative increasingly struggles against a force Israel cannot easily control: people can see what is happening themselves.
Palestinian journalists, doctors, parents and ordinary citizens no longer depend entirely on Western governments or established media organisations to narrate their lives. Images, testimony and documentation travel directly from Gaza to millions of phones around the world.
There are limits to propaganda when people can witness the consequences of power for themselves. Public opinion increasingly reflects that rupture.
A Pew Research Center survey across 36 countries this year found a median of 67 percent of respondents held an unfavourable view of Israel. In the United Kingdom, it was 69 percent, Germany – 73 percent, Italy – 75 percent and Australia – 79 percent. Even in the United States, Israel’s most important ally, 60 percent viewed Israel unfavourably.
Among younger people, the transformation is more dramatic still. Seventy-four percent of Americans aged 18 to 34 surveyed by Pew viewed Israel unfavourably, as did 78 percent of young Britons and 87 percent of young Australians.
This does not mean everyone supports Palestine or agrees on what a political settlement should look like. It means that the cost of speaking up for Palestine is falling.
For years, the implied question confronting artists, academics and other public figures openly supporting Palestine was: what are you prepared to lose? Your booking? Your sponsorship? Your reputation? Your career?
The purpose of such consequences was larger than the individual. Punish one person publicly and hundreds of others would understand the warning and keep silent.
But deterrence only works when people are deterred.
This time, they weren’t. And that put pressure on the censors and those who complied.
The backlash forced Sheeran to speak up publicly about Palestine. On Saturday, during his concert in Philadelphia, where he had to play solo, he called what is happening in Gaza “unjustifiable”.
The equation has clearly changed.
Speaking for Palestine can still carry a professional cost. Macklemore has just demonstrated that. But increasingly, censors may discover that silencing pro-Palestine voices carries a cost, too.
That is why the Israeli narrative crisis runs deeper than falling approval ratings.
The old power was not merely the ability to silence Palestinians and those who stood with them. It was the ability to determine which account of Palestine the world would hear. That monopoly is breaking.
They succeeded in removing the man who said “Free Palestine” from the stage. But “Free Palestine” became louder.
And that may be the clearest indication yet that Israel is not simply losing an argument. It is losing its grip on the story.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
