American singer John Legend entertained Shopify employees when he surprised them with a rendition of his hit song “All of Me” at the Canadian e-commerce giant’s internal summit.
While the Grammy Award-winner is most famous for his chart-topping music and marriage to Chrissy Teigen, he is also notable for his numerous forays into thorny political issues, specifically the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
For example, during the Hamas-initiated conflagration last May, Legend tweeted to his nearly 14 million followers, “Palestinian Lives Matter,” in a jeu de mots reference to the American campaign against alleged police brutality towards black people.
Asked about the remark in a September 2021 interview with MSNBC’s Mehdi Hassan, Legend responded:
When I see what’s happening in Palestine [sic], to the Palestinian people, where they’re clearly not being able to experience [the] full rights that they deserve, it’s an extremely unfair and difficult life they’re forced to live, I had to say something. It’s not fair, it’s not just, and given that Israel is the recipient of so much American aid and support and named as one of our strongest allies, we should hold them to a higher standard, and what they’re doing with the Palestinian people is not fair and it shouldn’t be done in our name and with our resources contributing to it.” [emphasis added]
Aside from the fact that Legend flagrantly breaches the IHRA’s working definition of antisemitism; namely, by applying a clear double standard in which he claims the Jewish state should be judged according to different criteria than other democratic nations, it is worrying that host Mehdi Hassan does not bother to challenge any of his assertions.
For example, Hassan could have pointed out that last May’s conflict was triggered by Gaza’s US-designated terrorist rulers Hamas firing a barrage of rockets towards Israel’s capital, Jerusalem.
“I had to say something. It’s not fair,” @JohnLegend tells @MehdiRHasan why he spoke out in support of the Palestinian people. “They’re clearly not being able to experience full rights that they deserve … We should hold [Israel] to a higher standard.” pic.twitter.com/HAryspSZdS
— The Mehdi Hasan Show (@MehdiHasanShow) September 20, 2021
Yet, this is not the only time Legend’s tenuous grasp of complex political issues has veered into antisemitism and anti-Israel bigotry.
During the 2014 Gaza conflict, which was preceded by Hamas kidnapping and murdering three Israeli teenagers and firing rockets from the coastal enclave, the singer offered this penetrating observation on Twitter: “So sick watching our Secretary of State have to grovel so hard to tell Israel how much he loves them while Israeli cabinet shits on him.”
Further Reading: Getting the Facts Right: Celebrities Fight Tide By Defending Israel
And in 2016, Legend likened previous US president Donald Trump to Nazi leader and architect of the Holocaust Adolf Hitler, describing the former as having said “Hitler-level things in public,” before adding: “It’s dangerous for us to think that it couldn’t happen to us like it happened to Germany in the ‘30s and ‘40s.”
It should go without saying that it is lazy, incorrect, and, more importantly, antisemitic to use Nazi comparisons to score cheap shots at those with differing political views (see here for a more detailed exposition of this point).
Which brings us back to Shopify.
The e-commerce platform, which allows individual merchants to open their own online stores, has also waded into a few contentious issues, most notably when it blacklisted official stores selling Donald Trump’s campaign merchandise.
The tech giant made the decision following the Capitol Hill riot on January 6, 2021, and subsequently issued an explanation:
Shopify does not tolerate actions that incite violence. Based on recent events, we have determined that the actions by President Donald J. Trump violate our Acceptable Use Policy, which prohibits promotion or support of organizations, platforms or people that threaten or condone violence to further a cause.”
The issue is not Donald Trump.
The point is that one must wonder how sincere Shopify is in ensuring the stores on its platform do not promote or support organizations or people that “threaten or condone violence to further a cause,” considering the number of sites working under its umbrella that appear to be doing just that.
For example, there are a number of Shopify stores that currently trade in Nazi memorabilia, including one that advertises an “incredible” Luftwaffe general’s hat for $15,500. For $13,750, one can get their hands on a “spectacular” Nazi uniform, complete with a bright red Swastika-emblazoned armband.
Another store called “Kampfgruppe” – a word associated with Nazi combat troops – purports to sell everything from Nazi medals, armbands, belts and flags. It should be noted, though, that it also has a collection of military items that belonged to the Allied Forces.
There is also an abundance of shops that are stocked up with “pro-Palestinian” items, including retailers selling scarves, teeshirts and even cushions emblazoned with Hamas’ favorite rallying cry, “from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea, Palestine will be free” (see here and here).
This antisemitic slogan is an explicit call for the destruction of the Jewish state.
Shopify is, of course, a private company and has every right to choose who operates on its platform.
But when that same corporation allows some vendors to sell Nazi collectibles — a practice Jewish groups have decried as profiting off the Holocaust — as well as goods that implicitly call for violence against Israel and its citizens, Shopify has very clearly nailed its colors to the proverbial mast: that is, its actions suggest promoting hatred and violence is unacceptable except when Jews and Israelis are the targets.
We encourage our readers to reach out to Shopify at [email protected] to – politely, but firmly – ask that vendors are prevented from profiting off the sale of Nazi memorabilia
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