DAVID RICH
378 people were murdered at the Nova music festival in southern Israel on October 7th: 378 young people who just wanted to dance, let loose and party, as young people all over the world do at music festivals. They were murdered by Hamas, in cold blood and in a murderous frenzy, filmed by Hamas themselves as they did it. Some were raped, others tortured, others still kidnapped and taken as hostages back to Gaza where some still suffer unimaginable atrocities in their underground dungeons.
Today, tens of thousands of their festival-going counterparts at Glastonbury, led from the stage by Bob Vylan, chanted “Death, death to the IDF”. They, too, were just young people at a music festival, and the ease with which they went along with a call for Israelis to be killed reveals a deep sickness at the heart of our culture.
Something broke at Glastonbury today. I can’t remember any other single occasion when a crowd of that size chanted for anyone to be killed. It’s the kind of mass hatred that belongs at a Blood & Honour neo-Nazi gig, not at Britain’s biggest music festival, broadcast live on the BBC. But it happened, and it lays bare the sheer permissibility of hating Israelis even to the point of wishing them dead. This is the racism that is not just allowed but actively celebrated in progressive circles.
This is a music industry that did virtually nothing in response to the Nova festival massacre. That was the worst terror attack on a concert in living memory, far eclipsing the numbers killed in similar horrors: the ninety victims at the Bataclan Theatre in Paris in November 2015, the sixty people shot dead at a music festival in Las Vegas in 2017, and the twenty-two murdered in the bombing of an Ariana Grande concert at the Manchester Arena in 2017. But whereas stars from around the world came together for a charity concert with Ariana Grande to support the victims of that atrocity, instead, when it comes to Israelis, we get Kneecap leading their fans in a chant of “Up Hamas” – the very people who slaughtered all those young festivalgoers on October 7th.
Everyone knows that, despite all the talk of free speech, if Kneecap had led their fans in chants of “up Combat 18” at their gigs and waved the flag of National Action – a banned neo-Nazi terrorist group – they would not be playing at Glastonbury and their set would not be broadcast on the BBC. But because Kneecap chose to celebrate Hamas and Hizbollah rather than neo-Nazi terrorists, they get the backing of Paul Weller, Massive Attack, Fontaines DC, and dozens of other luminaries of the music industry. Hizbollah, let’s not forget, is a thoroughly antisemitic, murderous organisation. They killed 85 people in blowing up the AMIA Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires in 1994, and have left a bloody trail of anti-Jewish terrorism around the world ever since. They invented the antisemitic lie that 4,000 Israelis (or Jews, they tend not to make a distinction) didn’t turn up to work in the World Trade Centre on 9/11, because those attacks were supposedly a Jewish plot. But in the fashionable, progressive music industry, supporting Hizbollah does not make you a racist. It makes you a free speech hero.
Meanwhile, Oi Va Voi, a band of Jewish heritage that plays Jewish and Israeli-themed music, has had their gigs cancelled, not for anything they have said or done, but simply because they have an Israeli singer, and these supposed champions of free speech in the music industry are silent. The double standards are so stark it reeks of prejudice.
Is it antisemitic to chant “Death, death to the IDF”? Or is it ‘only’ anti-Israeli? When you are calling for people to be killed, such semantics tend to feel rather irrelevant. In 2004 Sacha Baron Cohen showed how easy it is to get a music crowd to sing along with a call for Jews to be killed, but Borat’s ‘Throw the Jew Down the Well’ was satire. Bob Vylan’s equivalent was chillingly sinister.
Still, it leaves us with the clarifying virtue of knowing where we stand. Now we know that it’s OK to call for Israelis to be killed, and a Glastonbury crowd will chant along. The festival is inclusive, we are told by its owners, and open to all: even to those who want to see the mass murder of our fellow Jews in Israel. And despite all the warnings and previous complaints about the BBC’s inadequacies in this area, despite the obvious and predictable controversy surrounding Kneecap, and despite the fact that we are living through a time of such heightened extremism and antisemitism, our national broadcaster was so ignorant or complacent or complicit that they managed to broadcast “Death, death to the IDF” to the nation. Incitement to violence via the licence fee – just when you thought a new low was impossible, they found a way.
If anyone is still wondering why so many Jews are asking what has happened to this country: this is why. Whether it meets an academic, technical definition of antisemitism is beside the point. Murderous hatred is alive in our society, and it is directed at people like us. If that doesn’t bother you, if it doesn’t ring every alarm bell in your anti-racist consciousness, then you aren’t the anti-racist you think you are. You’re just an antisemitic fellow traveller with a Glastonbury wristband.
This piece was first published on Dave Rich’s Substack which you can subscribe to here.
See Related Article Below
Glastonbury: It was not a mistake, it was a co-ordinated act of provocation
RICHARD TICE
THE events at Glastonbury this past weekend should concern anyone who believes that anti-Semitism has no place in British public life. What unfolded on one of the country’s most iconic cultural stages wasn’t spontaneous rebellion or edgy political commentary: it was a deliberate and co-ordinated act of provocation. Worse, it was broadcast live to a national audience, under the watch of both the BBC and the festival’s organisers.
Kneecap are a band whose lead singer has previously been arrested under anti-terrorism legislation and who has openly threatened to use his platform to make anti-Semitic and anti-Israel statements, both on television and at Glastonbury. Despite this history, the band were not only invited to perform but reportedly informed by the BBC that their set would not be aired. In reality, what followed suggests a calculated workaround.
Just before Kneecap’s performance, the BBC aired the set of a lesser-known duo, Bob Vylan, with a troubling legal background and a documented history of anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric. Bob Vylan, known associates of Kneecap, were given a prime broadcast slot directly before their set. This was no coincidence. Judging by the crowd’s reaction, many knew what was coming.
This wasn’t an act of creative expression. It was a co-ordinated stunt. A platform for hate, dressed up as art. This was not and is not free speech. This is hate speech, pure and simple.
To make matters worse, Glastonbury also hosted a scheduled talk by Palestine Action, a group that was recently proscribed by the UK government under anti-terrorism legislation. Their inclusion wasn’t just provocative; it may well constitute a direct violation of UK law. That one of Britain’s most visible cultural institutions gave a platform to an organisation designated a terrorist group is not only outrageous – it raises urgent questions about institutional responsibility and legal oversight.
Then there’s the rhetoric itself. Chants of ‘Death to the IDF’ echoed throughout the festival grounds. This is not a harmless political slogan. It is the equivalent of shouting ‘Death to the British Army’. The Israel Defense Forces are a core military ally of the United Kingdom and represent the defence of Israel, a democratic state and close British partner. Calling for their destruction is calling for violence against the Jewish state. That this message was met not with outrage but with applause is a damning reflection of the environment that has been allowed to fester.
This is not just about Glastonbury. It speaks to a broader institutional failure – across the BBC, the arts sector and civil society – to recognise and respond to anti-Semitism when it comes cloaked in the language of activism. The double standards are glaring. No other form of bigotry would be tolerated so openly at a major UK event, let alone amplified to millions via public broadcast.
What we witnessed was not a mistake. It was a choice. The BBC and Glastonbury’s organisers must answer for it. Who signed off on these decisions? What safeguards failed? And what’s being done to ensure it never happens again?
The British Jewish community – and the British public at large – deserve better than silence.
This article (Glastonbury: It was not a mistake, it was a co-ordinated act of provocation) was created and published by Conservative Woman and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author Richard Tice
*****
Criminal Investigation Launched into Bob Vylan and Kneecap’s Glastonbury Performances as US Revokes Punk Group’s Visa Over Antisemitic Death Chants
WILL JONES
Police have announced a criminal investigation into Bob Vylan and Kneecap’s Glastonbury performances as the Trump administration kills the punk duo’s American tour by revoking their visa over antisemitic death chants. The Mail has more.
There has been widespread condemnation of the comments made by the group Bob Vylan whose frontman led chants of “Free Palestine” and “Death to the IDF” – while there has also been controversy over Irish rap trio Kneecap’s appearance there too.
The BBC has faced strong criticism over its various responses following the performance that was broadcast on Saturday, including suggestions it should face charges – while the band this afternoon had their US visas revoked.
Avon and Somerset Police have now said: “Video footage and audio from Bob Vylan and Kneecap’s performances at Glastonbury Festival on Saturday has been reviewed.
“Following the completion of that assessment process we have decided further enquiries are required and a criminal investigation is now being undertaken. A senior detective has been appointed to lead this investigation.
“This has been recorded as a public order incident at this time while our enquiries are at an early stage. The investigation will be evidence-led and will closely consider all appropriate legislation, including relating to hate crimes.
“We have received a large amount of contact in relation to these events from people across the world and recognise the strength of public feeling.
“There is absolutely no place in society for hate.
“Neighbourhood policing teams are speaking with people in their local communities and key stakeholders to make sure anyone who needs us knows that we are here for them.
“We hope the work we have carried out, and are continuing to carry out, reassures the public how seriously we are treating Saturday’s events.
“We politely ask the public refrain from continuing to report this matter to us because an investigation is already taking place.”
The BBC today admitted it should have cut the broadcast of what it called “utterly unacceptable” and “antisemitic” sentiments in Bob Vylan’s Glastonbury set.
And media watchdog Ofcom told the BBC it was “very concerned” over Saturday’s live broadcast.
Worth reading in full.
The cancellation of the visa probably serves Bob Vylan right but, as Laurie argues in the Spectator, a genuine commitment to free speech should require a threshold higher than what these morons have been accused of to attract criminal sanction.
Stop Press: BBC Director-General Tim Davie personally made the decision not to pull the iPlayer livestream of Bob Vylan’s performance while in attendance at the festival himself, it has emerged.
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