Grammy Award-winning American musician and rapper Macklemore has released a new song in support of Palestinians that questions Biden's role in Israel's "genocidal" war on Gaza and praises students across the United States for protesting the atrocities meted out to Palestinians.
University students have been mobilising for weeks on campuses over Israel's brutal invasion and its US backing, with police forcibly clearing protest camps —sometimes violently — and arresting more than 2,500 people nationwide.
"If students in tents posted on the lawn / Occupying the quad is really against the law / And a reason to call in the police and their squad / Where does genocide land in your definition, huh?" Macklemore raps in "Hind's Hall."
The song is named after the building at Columbia University that students recently occupied and renamed after Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl killed by Israeli army in Gaza.
Macklemore admonishes the US government, telling President Joe Biden "blood is on your hands" and that he won't vote for him in the November election.
Israel is "a state that's gotta rely on an apartheid system to uphold an occupying violent history, been repeating for the last 75" years, Macklemore says in the song.
"We see the lies in them, claiming it's anti-Semitic to be anti-Zionist / I've seen Jewish brothers and sisters out there and riding in solidarity and screaming 'Free Palestine' with them."
The US declared its support for Israel since the beginning of the war in October last year. US never holds back in arming Israel, regardless of alarming Gaza civilian casualties. Washington gives Israel $3.8 billion in annual military dole and often shields its ally at the United Nations.
Billboard Hot 100
The rapper best known for cult hits like 2012's "Thrift Shop" has released socially aware music in the past, while also criticising ills including poverty and consumerism.
The song soared to the top of the US Billboard Hot 100, marking the first single song since 1994 to achieve this feat, according to Billboard.
In his latest track — which is currently only out on social media — Macklemore also criticises the music industry for being "complicit in their platform of silence" while casting Drake and Kendrick Lamar's ongoing rap beef as trivial in light of actual war.
Macklemore said that once his song is available to stream, all proceeds will go to UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
