US RAPPER MACKLEMORE has said he will donate his $1 million (€867,000) earnings from Ed Sheeran’s Loop tour to Palestinian organisations, after he was pulled from the tour over his stance on Israel’s attacks on the region.

Macklemore has invited Robert Kraft, the multi-billionaire stadium owner behind his ousting from the tour, to “match my donation” to groups providing support to Palestine.

“Whatever we disagree about, perhaps we can agree on this: Palestinian lives are worth protecting. A Palestinian life is no less valuable than any other life on this earth,” Macklemore said in the latest statement on the controversy on Wednesday night.

“Writing a check is one of the least costly forms of solidarity available to me. I am doing it because I can, and because these organisations are doing the work while much of the world debates it.”

Kraft, who owns Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts, said in a statement this week that Macklemore had been “deeply offensive and hurtful to the Jewish community” when he spoke in favour of the Palestine cause in two performances supporting Sheeran.

In Wednesday’s post on Instagram, Macklemore said that, “with everything that has happened over the last 48 hours, I want to bring the conversation back to where it belongs: to the Palestinian people who are still being killed, still living under military occupation, and still fighting for their freedom”.

He added: “I will be donating the entire $1 million of my net earnings from Ed Sheeran’s Loop Tour to six organisations working directly to support the Palestinian people.

“That is what this has always been about. Not me. Not a tour. Not the headlines or the controversy. It is about Palestinians right to freedom, dignity and safety in their own homeland.”

The rapper added that he wanted to focus on the “parents carrying their children into hospitals without the basic resources to treat them, and the physicians, paramedics, journalists and aid workers who keep going back in”.

He outlined that organisations and activists have “paid real costs” for standing with Palestine, saying that “their risk is of a far different order than mine”.

Just yesterday, 15-year-old Muhammad al Zinati was killed in an Israeli strike while rushing to help aid worker Sherif Lubbad, who had already been injured. He was a child. Both were murdered. Both should be alive.

However, the musician added that aid alone “cannot address the conditions that make it necessary”, calling the treatment of Palestine a “manmade injustice” that requires immediate political change.

He added: “When the news cycle moves on, which it will, don’t move with it, Free Palestine.”

Earlier statements 

In a statement released on Tuesday, Sheeran confirmed that Macklemore was removed from the tour in a decision taken by tour promoters following pressure by the owners of the stadiums on the upcoming dates.

The English singer-songwriter said in his statement that he does “not use my professional platform for politics” and confirmed that he would be continuing with the tour, adding:

“I would never let down the fans who had made plans, nor would I abandon the touring crew and the other support acts and musicians who rely on me for work and to make money.”

However, since that statement, all the support acts that were due to be opening acts for Sheeran on the upcoming dates have now pulled out in solidarity with Macklemore.

Sheeran’s next tour date is scheduled for this Saturday in Philadelphia and, on his official website, the support acts that have pulled out remain listed.

A number of the acts that have pulled out of Sheeran’s tour are Irish, while a couple of the others have strong Irish links.