“American Pie” singer Don McLean has added his name to the list of artists calling out Ye's recent barrage of antisemitic hate speech.
“Lately a flood of antisemitic invective has been triggered by the ranting of a stupid attention-seeking fool we all know,” McLean wrote in the statement that did not mention Ye by name. “I want to say I stand with my Jewish friends and I stand with the state of Israel. When this kind of thing happens we should realize why the state of Israel must be respected and protected.”
McLean noted that he lived in Israel on-and-off from 1978-1982 and he “grew to love the country and the people. Living there changed my life forever.” The Anti-Defamation League, which tracks antisemitic behavior in the U.S. recently reported that there were in 2021, a 34 percent rise from the year before for an average of more than seven such attacks per day.reported this week that longtime watchdogs of antisemitism say the type of overtly derogatory comments made recently by Ye — as well as former president Donald Trump — are not new, but that the unapologetic manner in which they’ve been delivered in public forums is concerning at a time when incidents of harassment, vandalism and violence against Jews is at its highest level in the U.S.
“Empirically, something is different. The level of public animosity towards Jews is higher than it’s been in recent memory,” Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the ADL told the paper. “While at a generalized level, antisemitic attitudes have dropped, the incidents have risen because there is less shame. People feel they can say and do anything.”
Over the past several weeks West has been on a bizarre media tour in which he has doubled and tripled-down on comments disparaging Jews after already raising eyebrows by promoting a “