Macklemore’s Illiteracy Tour: The Sanitization of Colonial Conquest

Harry Liberman

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When pop icons step off the stage and onto the global political soapbox, they frequently rely on a weaponized form of historical amnesia. 

The recent political crusades of American performer Ben Haggerty, known as Macklemore, offer a textbook study in this phenomenon. 

What is presented as a righteous stand against imperialism is, upon closer inspection of the historical record, an “illiteracy tour.” It is a spectacle that neatly flips the roles of indigenous population and colonial conqueror, flattening centuries of complex Middle Eastern history into a highly selective, modern Western narrative.

To unpack the modern conflict requires looking past viral slogans and examining the deep layers of Near Eastern history—starting with the concept of indigeneity itself. 

The Jewish people trace their unbroken ethnographic, linguistic, and archaeological roots directly to the ancient soil of Judea and Samaria. 

For a Western celebrity to brand the return of an exiled indigenous population to its ancestral cradle as a foreign colonial enterprise requires a systematic ignoring of history. 

If one wishes to discuss actual colonization, the timeline does not begin in 1948; it begins in the 7th century.

The expansion of the early Islamic caliphates during the 7th-century Arab conquests brought vast swaths of the Middle East, North Africa, and the Levant under imperial Islamic rule. This massive military expansion systematically transformed dozens of previously sovereign Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Zoroastrian, and Coptic regions. Over centuries, these territories were absorbed into a vast empire. 

Under this theological and imperial framework, any land brought under Islamic sovereignty was often designated as Waqf—an immutable religious endowment held in perpetuity. Within this system, the concept of a distinct, historically independent “Palestinian nation” is a relatively modern political framework, designed to contest Jewish claims to a continuous ancestral home.

This historical process continued into the 20th century under the administration of the British Empire. Despite the 1922 League of Nations Mandate explicitly tasks Great Britain with creating a “national home for the Jewish people,” British administrators repeatedly adjusted their policies to favor regional Arab interests. 

This culminated in 1922 when Britain partitioned nearly 75% of the original mandated territory to establish Transjordan, heavily restricting Jewish settlement west of the river.

The climax of this policy unfolded during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Following Israel’s declaration of independence, Britain’s strategic alignment shifted toward regional Arab states. 

The Jordanian military force, known as the Arab Legion, was trained, financed, and led by British officers, notably Lieutenant General John Bagot Glubb (Glubb Pasha). This British-led Arab Legion marched into the remaining mandated lands west of the Jordan River, seizing the historic heartlands of Judea and Samaria.

To obscure the deeply rooted Jewish history of these territories, Jordan formally annexed the area and unilaterally renamed it the “West Bank.” 

This geographic renaming accompanied a systematic campaign of demographic alteration. Every single Jewish resident was expelled or captured, rendering the ancient heartlands of Judea and Samaria entirely devoid of Jewish life. Under subsequent Jordanian administration, strict legal codes banned Jewish land ownership and residency. This physical expulsion was accompanied by the destruction of historic cultural sites; across the region, ancient Jewish cemeteries were systematically dismantled, tombstones were desecrated, and sacred sites were repurposed for mundane,Latrines  or military use.

Under Jordanian rule between  1948 and “1967,” these  were the so called pre 1967  borders that illiterate   activists  claim  were the “Palestinian   state ” already in the  hands of the Hashemite Monarchy  for 20 years  with no intention of  creating a  state  for a nation  that never  existed , instead it  was  used  as a  state to eliminate the legitimate  Jewish State.

Thousands of ancient Jewish tombstones from the Mount of Olives were systematically ripped out : They were stripped of their sacred context and used by the military for ordinary, non-religious construction projects—such as paving civilian pathways, building retaining walls, and constructing army latrines 

This history provides crucial context for understanding the foundational ideology of modern extremist factions. 

The original 1988 Hamas Covenant explicitly rejects secular political compromise, framing the conflict in starkly theological terms. The text incorporates specific hadiths (sayings attributed to the Prophet Muhammad) that call for the literal erasure of Jews, presenting the struggle as an immutable religious obligation rather than a simple border dispute. 

Article 7 of the 1988 Hamas Covenant outlines  an Islamic  genocidal obligation  to  kill the  Jews dating  back over 1000  years !

Article 22 presents a sweeping conspiracy theory alleging control over global finance, media, revolutions, and World Wars. 

The Avalon Project at Yale Law School.

The tragic events of October 7, 2023, were not an sudden, isolated geopolitical anomaly, but the direct execution of this long-standing theological doctrine.

When Western activists ignore these deep historical realities, they do not advance the cause of human rights. Instead, they broadcast an ahistorical narrative that treats centuries of imperial conquest, forced demographic shifts, and explicit ideological declarations as non-existent. A lasting perspective on the region requires moving beyond the curated talking points of a celebrity tour and engaging directly with the documented facts of history.

 Macklemore has no known formal education or specialized academic background in the complex ancient and modern geopolitical history . The American rapper (born Ben Haggerty) attended Garfield High School and Nathan Hale High School in Seattle, and later earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from The Evergreen State College, where his studies focused on a broad liberal arts curriculum rather than Near Eastern studies or Middle Eastern history.

Macklemore’s illiteracy tour  points out an operational hypocrisy: The Sanitization of Colonial Conquest

Western nations (such as the United States where  Macklemore (Ben Haggerty )  was born , Canada, or Australia) were built upon the complete displacement of indigenous populations. In contrast, the re-establishment of a Jewish homeland represents, to its supporters, the return of an exiled indigenous population to its ancestral soil, rather than a foreign colonial enterprise.

The Performer vs. The Name

• Ben Haggerty adopted the stage name Macklemore for commercial, creative, and public performance reasons.Despite using a different public label, his actual legal identity, his ancestry, his birthplace of Seattle, and his personal history remain completely unchanged. He is still Ben Haggerty.

Judea vs. Syria Palaestina

• In 135 CE, following the Bar Kokhba revolt, the Roman Empire under Emperor Hadrian officially stripped the name Judaea from the region and replaced it with Syria Palaestina.This renaming was a deliberate, punitive political act designed to sever the geographical connection between the Jewish people and their ancestral homeland following a series of brutal rebellions against Roman imperial rule.
• Just as adopting a stage name does not change Ben Haggerty’s biological roots, the Roman renaming did not alter the archaeological, historical, and genealogical indigeneity of the Jewish people to the hills of Judea and Samaria. The physical artifacts, the ancient burial sites, and the textual records remain permanently embedded in the soil.

The Core Disconnect

 This is where the historical illiteracy of modern celebrity activism becomes most obvious.  Public figures often treat the name “Palestine” as if it represents an ancient, uninterrupted, indigenous Arab nation-state that predates all other history.

By failing to look behind the label, they miss the historical irony: the very name they use to delegitimize Jewish presence in the land was originally invented by a European colonial power (Rome) explicitly to cover up the indigenous Jewish identity of the region

The Stone-Cold Evidence of European Colonization and Slavery of the  Jews !

The ultimate proof of Rome’s brutal colonization of Judea stands physically in the heart of Europe today. 

Two of Italy’s most famous monuments—the Arch of Titus and the Colosseum—serve as direct, permanent material evidence of the destruction of the Jewish nation, the systematic looting of the Second Temple, and the mass enslavement of the Jewish people. [1, 2] 

The Looting of the Second Temple: 

In 70 CE, the Roman General Titus crushed the Great Jewish Revolt, sacked Jerusalem, and burned the Jewish Temple. The Arch of Titus was built in Rome to celebrate this conquest. Its interior marble panels explicitly depict Roman soldiers carrying away the sacred spoils of Judea, including the golden Table of Showbread, the silver trumpets, and the iconic Seven-Branched Golden Menorah. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] 

Funding the Colosseum with Jewish Wealth from  Judea ! 

The immense wealth stolen from the Jerusalem Temple treasury directly financed the construction of the Roman Colosseum (Flavian Amphitheater), which began under Emperor Vespasian in 72 CE. A primary stone inscription discovered at the arena’s entrance reads “ex manubiis”, legally confirming that the Emperor ordered the structure to be built “from the spoils of war against  the Jews “. [1, 2] 

The Enslavement of the Jewish People:

 Following the fall of Judea, Europe’s Roman forces dragged over 97,000 Jewish captives back to Rome in chains. Historical records indicate that an over 50,000 Jewish slaves were forced into grueling, backbreaking forced labor to physically construct the Colosseum under the burning Roman European sun. [1, 2, 3, 4]

For centuries, the Jewish community of Rome strictly refused to walk underneath the Arch of Titus, viewing it as a symbol of National Mourning and forced exile ,invoking Jeremiah the Weeping Prophet: During days of national mourning—such as Tisha B’Av (the annual fast commemorating the destruction of both the First and Second Temples)—members of the diaspora community would gather near the arch. 

Defying the visual boastfulness of the Roman victory panels, they sat on the ground to chant Eichah (The Book of Lamentations), authored by the Weeping Prophet Jeremiah. Gathering under or near the shadow of the stone, they applied Jeremiah’s ancient cries directly to their Roman oppressors: 

                “All thine enemies have opened their mouth wide against thee; they hiss and gnash their teeth“ (Jeremiah 2:16). [1, 2]

The Diaspora Cry of “Next Year in Jerusalem”: For generations of Jews scattered across Europe, the phrase “L’Shanah Haba’ah B’Yerushalayim” (Next Year in Jerusalem) was not merely a liturgical sign-off at the conclusion of Passover and Yom Kippur. It was a literal, defiant geopolitical hope for the restoration of sovereignty in Judea.

 In 1949, when the modern State of Israel was re- established, the Jewish  Nation chose the precise design of the Menorah carved onto the Roman Arch of Titus to serve as its permanent, official state emblem—turning a monument of colonial conquest into a symbol of indigenous survival and return. [1, 2, 3]

Israel must campaign the Vatican to return Temple vessels

Modern replica of the Arch of Titus relief depicting the spoils of the Jerusalem Temple. By derivative work: Steerpike (talk)Arc_de_Triumph_copy.jpg: user: House of Peace – Arc_de_Triumph_copy.jpg, Public Domain, Link