Coldplay welcomed Israeli fans onstage ‘as equal humans.’ Why are some Jewish people mad?
When Chris Martin tried to acknowledge both sides of a bloody war onstage, people called him patronizing
When you’re wondering if you said the right thing. Photo by Jim Dyson/Getty Images
By Louis Keene September 2, 2025
Chris Martin is causing trouble again. Earlier this summer, the Coldplay front man correctly guessed a couple shown on camera at his concert were having an affair, setting off a high-profile business scandal and thousands of memes.
Like the kiss cam moment, the “Fix You” singer’s decision to invite a pair of fans onstage in London over the weekend was a routine occurrence that took a turn: He asked the two young women where they had come from, and they told him — and the crowd of 90,000 people in a sold-out Wembley Stadium — that they were from Israel.
“OK — well, well,” Martin said, clearing his throat. You could practically see it dawn on him that what he said next would land him in hot water no matter what. The sellout crowd was already starting to boo.
“Well listen,” Martin continued, “I’m gonna say this. I’m very grateful that you’re here as humans, and I’m treating you as equal humans on earth, regardless of where you come from or don’t come from. Thank you for being here, and thank you for being loving and kind.”
He put an arm on the shoulder of one fan and accepted the sign the pair had brought onstage — what it said was unclear — as they beamed with pride. Then he continued.
“And though it’s controversial maybe, I also want to welcome people in the audience from Palestine. We have, we are, I believe we’re all equal humans. And — thank you for being here.” The video did not show the Israeli fans’ reaction to that part.
It was not particularly controversial to say this at Wembley, which erupted in cheers the second he said “Palestine.” But it has elicited a strong backlash online, where pro-Israel Jewish social media accounts slammed Martin for doing the opposite of what he had sought to do.
Jewish influencer Yaakov Langer criticized Martin, saying he “berates” them for being Israeli.
“He didn’t mention the hostages being held by Hamas,” Langer said. “He didn’t actually treat them like human beings.”
Eve Barlow, a pro-Israel writer, said she “cannot even begin to unpack how mortifying that moment must have been” for the two fans.
It is true that Chris Martin could have reacted to hearing the word “Israel” by saying “Oh! Welcome!” and moving on. He also could have gone the route of Bob Vylan, the duo famous for chanting “death to the IDF” at Glastonbury, or Bono, the U2 lead singer who criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month in The Atlantic.
But it’s probably worth recognizing that it’s September 2025, and Israel’s war in Gaza, approaching two years and leaving more than 60,000 dead, has made it extremely unpopular around the world. When you bring up Israel these days — and for a long time ahead of us — that’s where people’s heads are gonna go.
Martin has a history of arguably hamfisted attempts at trying to show equal respect to Israelis and Palestinians. He embarked on a “listening tour” to Israel and the West Bank in 2017 with Coldplay’s lead guitarist. In 2024, Martin asked a Glastonbury crowd to send love to Israel and Palestine, another apparent attempt at neutrality. And in a concert in the United Arab Emirates this past January, he invited a fan to dedicate a song to various Arab countries around the world, along with the West Bank and Gaza.
On stage at Wembley, the only things he knew about those two fans were their nationality and that a stadium’s worth of people was booing them.
“For a quarter of a second, we thought of saying Malta,” one of the two fans reportedly told the Israeli channel Kan 11 in an interview. “But then I said Israel. We couldn’t and didn’t want to lie. It’s a little scary that 90,000 people knew we’re from there, but we said it.”
Many of the people attacking Martin, meanwhile, seem to be guilty of the same thing they are accusing him of doing: assuming anything about those fans beyond their nationality. That they are Israeli does not actually mean that they would have wanted him to mention the hostages currently held by Hamas. It is possible that they support the annexation of Gaza — an idea proposed by Israeli Defense Minister Betzalel Smotrich — or that they are among the legions marching in the streets of Israel to call for an end to the war.
For all Martin knew, those Israeli fans hoped he would extend the same welcome to Palestinian fans that he extended to them. It didn’t really matter, though. At that moment, they were the same as everyone else in the crowd: human beings who loved his band.
