Honestly, the critic response in the article is so well-put, I don’t have anything to add. Just posting it here in the hopes it’s not missed:

Media and cultural critic Kaivan Shroff argued in Zeteo that Sheeran was not actually acting apolitically as he claimed, but rather “letting a pro-Israel billionaire choose his politics for him.”

“Kraft imposed a political condition on his tour, and then Sheeran enforced it,” Shroff wrote. “He did not remain above the dispute; he allowed the billionaire who owned the building to resolve it for him.”

“That is what the language of being ‘apolitical’ conceals,” he continued. “It treats the status quo as neutral and resistance to it as political. Kraft can decide that support for Palestinian freedom is beyond the boundaries of acceptable speech; venue owners can threaten a tour; corporate affiliates can calculate the financial exposure and draw their lines in the sand. None of that is described as activism. Politics supposedly only enters the room when Macklemore says those two words onstage.”

Shroff wrote that the saga demonstrated “how the ultrawealthy exercise political power without accepting political responsibility.”

“They translate an ideological demand into a business necessity, then leave everyone beneath them to describe compliance as unavoidable,” he said. “Kraft did not have to answer Macklemore’s argument about Gaza or persuade an audience that saying ‘Free Palestine’ constituted hate. He could simply threaten the tour instead. Once the money was put in jeopardy, all of a sudden, the unacceptable viewpoint disappeared.”