The Anti-Defamation League issued a statement accusing Macklemore of “engaging in antisemitic rhetoric and behavior,” whining, “Imagine being a Jewish or Israeli fan who came with family or friends to enjoy the show, only to be confronted with this hostility from the stage.”

When you hear people talk about an epidemic of “antisemitism” in our society, this is the kind of “antisemitism” they are talking about. A celebrity musician saying Palestinians are human beings. A flight attendant with a watermelon pin. A secretary wearing a keffiyeh. Some students opposing genocide.

Antisemitism is treated as the number one problem in our world, but it’s not in the top ten. It’s not in the top one hundred. It’s not even in the top one thousand. Once every several years someone shoots up a synagogue or Jewish event, which is of course bad, but compared to all the other real material atrocities and urgent existential perils we face as a species on this troubled planet it doesn’t rank very high on the list. Jewish people simply are not a mistreated or marginalized population in our society; they’re just white people who tend to have better than average household incomes.

But because “antisemitism” is used as a cynical tool to defend Israeli atrocities and western interventionism in the middle east, it needs to be framed as a much larger problem than it is. That’s why the imperial propaganda machine is currently presenting Macklemore’s obviously morally correct position as this major white hot controversy, and why it keeps churning out reports about western Jews feeling unsafe because they saw a Free Palestine bumper sticker or whatever.

Israel apologia is mostly just lying about Palestinians and acting like hatred of Jews is an exponentially larger threat than it actually is. That’s all these hasbarists are ever doing.