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LAST UPDATE | 2 Jul
POLITICIANS ACROSS THE UK have been falling over themselves to condemn punk group Bob Vylan for leading an impromptu chant at the Glastonbury music festival — “Appalling”, “revolting”, “totally unacceptable” according to Prime Minister Keir Starmer and several of his ministers.
On the same day the two-piece appeared on the West Holts stage, Israeli newspaper Haaretz published first-hand testimony from Israeli Defence Force (IDF) soldiers confirming what many already knew; the Israeli military is actively killing civilians seeking aid in an enclave where 100 per cent of the population is at risk of famine.
Over 400 people, including women and children, have been killed by the IDF at US-Israeli-backed ‘aid’ sites in just one month, their lives cruelly and violently taken over a bag of flour.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer made no statement on these reports, nor did they make headline news. Seemingly, the British PM and many others appear to be more outraged by 17 seconds of chanting at a music festival than by crimes against humanity. Following their Glastonbury performance, Bob Vylan have been dropped by their management, had their US visas revoked, and are under a criminal investigation.
Chanting “Death, death, to the IDF” was not intended to be comfortable – it was an aggressive act of artistic expression designed to shock. Some of the most influential and moving forms of artistic expression, unsurprisingly, have been deeply controversial, and artists have long used their platforms to challenge the establishment.
Lest we forget the controversy that ensued when Sinéad O’Connor ripped up a picture of the Pope live on air in 1992, or the backlash against Madonna’s 2017 statement that she had given a lot of thought to bombing the White House after Trump’s inauguration.
Both of these examples were an amplification and reflection of public sentiment, and so too were the words of Bob Vylan and the growing collective of passionate artists unafraid to use their platforms to call out government inaction and highlight the horrors being inflicted upon the Palestinian people at the hands of one of the strongest militaries in the world.
Despite Israel preventing journalists and international media access to Gaza, we are all witnesses; our social media timelines are flooded with bloody scenes of depravity and tragedy. People are frustrated and angry by the failure of the UK, the United States, the European Union, and many others to intervene in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under an international arrest warrant for war crimes – how, and why, does he and his government continue to receive military, diplomatic and financial support to carry out their crimes?
The arts should not be criminalised – art is pageantry – governments, however, are power. Israeli ministers have not shrouded their intention; “Those are animals, they have no right to exist … they need to be exterminated”; “Drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza”, “…justified and moral [to starve a population of 2 million]” — their words have real consequences. Israel has dropped over 100,000 tonnes of explosives on the civilian population of Gaza, killed over 55,000 people, and is preventing life-saving aid from entering the strip, an act that is in itself a war crime.
Bob Vylan has released a statement expressing that they are not promoting the death of any group or people, they are “for the dismantling of a violent military machine”. The IDF is not some persecuted minority group; it is a powerful military engaged in war crimes. Statements about the IDF have nothing to do with ethnicity or religion; it is not antisemitic.
Conflating the illegal actions of the IDF with Judaism, or the policies of Netanyahu’s extremist government, with the global Jewish community is both grotesque and offensive. The crimes perpetrated by the Israeli government, its military, its settler proxies in the West Bank, and their enablers belong to them alone.
As the summer festival circuit runs its course, artists who use their platform to speak up for Palestine will continue to be vilified and slandered for doing so, branded “Jew haters” and “antisemitic” for calling out military and political complicity and criminal inaction at the hands of those meant to be leaders.
These transparent attempts to vilify and misrepresent expressions of conscience and appeals to humanity as antisemitism fool no one – criticising the actions of the Israeli government has nothing to do with religion, supporting a free Palestine is not antisemitic; it is a moral and legal obligation.
At least 95 Palestinians were killed by the IDF in Gaza within the last 48 hours. Babies are dying of starvation because Israel is blocking the entry of baby formula — this is the story.
UK police have confirmed that they will also be investigating Kneecap’s performance at Glastonbury, whose crime appears to be chanting “f**k Keir Starmer”. As the UK government hollows out democratic values such as free speech in its effort to afford impunity for Israel’s actions, men, women and children are being brutally killed in Gaza.
We need moral clarity — anyone who spends more time criminalising artistic expression in the face of atrocity is either completely out of touch with reality or has an agenda of their own.
Emma DeSouza is a writer and campaigner.
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