A photo of Mackelmore wearing a costume in 2014 that was criticized as being antisemitic. Photo: screenshot.

On May 6, Yom HaShoah, American rapper Macklemore once again decided to come for the Jewish people. His 2014 costume of a caricatured Orthodox Jew was not enough. This time, he chose to share with his 5.2 million followers (almost one-third of the total number of  Jews in the world) a nearly three minute propaganda song. The song, titled “Hind Hall,” is filled with inaccuracies and anti-Jewish tropes in grotesque forms.

Over a rap beat, the opening shot of the music video displays a Palestinian flag-waver in head to toe in black, standing on a roof.

Within the first four sentences, Macklemore asks, “What is the problem about divesting and wanting peace?” The answer is straightforward. The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement is not about peace, as explained by Palestinian Human Rights and Peace Activist Bassem Eid.

The BDS movement ignores the realities on the ground, and is really about de-legitimizing and destroying the State of Israel in any recognizable form. BDS leaders themselves have said that their goal is to destroy Israel.

After a repetitive chant of “block the barricade until Palestine is free,” a slogan used to declare the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, the rapper declares, “f**k the police” for stopping the violence on campus and the harassment and assault of Jewish students by Palestinian protesters.

Deeply upsetting graphics of war-torn children are featured throughout the video. Not once does Macklemore mention the Israeli children murdered by Hamas on October 7 — or in the decades before by Palestinians who are viewed as heroes by their government. He also ignores Hamas’ role in the perpetration of violence against Gazans. Hamas sacrifices Gazan civilians, uses them as human shields, and buries its infrastructure in civilian areas. At the beginning of the war, Hamas threatened Gazans not to leave areas of fighting. And if October 7 had not happened, there would be no war in Gaza right now.

The Irish-raised Catholic wordsmith says that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism by tokenizing parasitic-minded anti-Zionist Jews for “finally cutting ties with a state” relying “on an apartheid system.” According to a 2021 Pew study, 8-in-10 Jews feel an intrinsic connection to Israel. Macklemore is using anti-Zionism as a litmus test for who is a good Jew — and the only Jews he supports are a tiny minority.

It’s also completely false to claim Israel is an apartheid state.

In addition to calling Israel an apartheid state, he labels Israelis as “colonizers” consistently in the song. According to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, using this falsehood is antisemitic, as the rhetoric denies the Jewish connection to the ancestral homeland of Israel.

Subsequently, he mentions how Israel is “bombing all the mosques,” which is not only a lie, but also ignores that Hamas has used some mosques as hideouts. Why the dishonesty? Additionally, proceeds from the song are going to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which has credible ties to promoting terrorist activity.

The cherry-picked imagery and out-of-context claims feel deliberate throughout the music video. As a musician, he has great power and influence, no matter how irrelevant he seems. His slander against the Jewish State will cause true and irreparable damage — but that’s exactly his goal.

Listen to the propaganda piece for yourself here.