Macklemore forgot Nova. Robert Kraft made sure America didn’t.

It is an extraordinary and infuriating irony that it took billionaire stadium owners to honor what “musicians” forgot-the memory of an audience of music fans butchered over “Free Palestine”.

At MetLife Stadium, before tens of thousands gathered in safety to celebrate music, Macklemore demanded “Free Palestine” and with his refusal to speak their names dishonored the memory of hundreds of innocent concertgoers slaughtered, wounded, and abducted from another fall open air venue on October 7, 2023.

On October 7, 2023, young people gathered at the Nova music festival near Kibbutz Re’im in southern Israel to do exactly what those of us attending Ed Sheeran concerts planned to do: listen to music, dance with friends, enjoy the night and go home afterward.

Hundreds never made it home.

Shani Nicole Louk

Hamas and other Palestinian attackers funded by the Iran Regime descended on southern Israel, murdering hundreds of festivalgoers and abducting others into Gaza.

The Hamas-led October 7 attack—including the massacre at Nova and the taking of hostages—triggered the war whose devastating consequences for Palestinians Macklemore now wants his audiences to protest.

That history matters.

Yet Macklemore stood before an enormous audience of music fans and proclaimed “Free Palestine” without mentioning the Nova concertgoers or the hostages. Then he announced his intention to take that message and silence to stages and stadiums across America.

In doing so, he presented his audience with a political message about Palestinian suffering while leaving out the atrocity that precipitated this war and the music fans who were among its first victims.

Thankfully, Robert Kraft and a bunch of billionaires drew a line.

By refusing to give Macklemore the stage at Gillette Stadium, Kraft did more than decide about a performer. To me, he honored the memory of the Nova victims by refusing to let his stadium become another platform for a one-sided account of the violence in Gaza—one that demanded attention for its consequences while omitting the massacre and hostage-taking that preceded the war.

That distinction matters.

Remembering Nova does not require ignoring Palestinian suffering. It requires refusing to tell the story as though the suffering began without an October 7.

The response from several musicians was swift. Finneas, Lukas Graham, Aaron Rowe and Beoga withdrew from the tour following Macklemore’s removal.

They rallied around a fellow musician.

But where was their public remembrance of the concert audience at Nova?

Of all people, musicians should understand who those victims were. They weren’t attending a political convention. They weren’t combatants.

They were their audience.

They stood before a stage, listened to performers they loved, danced with friends and expected to go home—exactly what we planned to do at an Ed Sheeran concert.

I bought my ticket to hear music, not to become the backdrop for a traveling political declaration. But this is bigger than my night at a concert.

Macklemore wanted Palestinians to know that he had “not forgotten about them.”

But he stood before an audience of music fans without mentioning the music fans slaughtered at Nova. His fellow musicians rallied around him when venues objected.

Robert Kraft and the billionaires remembered something the “musicians” did not.

You cannot honestly tell the story of the violence in Gaza while erasing the violence that helped set this war in motion. And you certainly shouldn’t erase it while standing before the very kind of audience that was massacred at Nova.

Kraft refused to give his stadium to that incomplete telling of the story.

In doing so, he and his fellow billionaires honored an audience that should have been impossible for the music world to forget.

Thank you, Robert Kraft.