Punk bands have always been known for crossing the red lines of polite society, for shocking the mainstream. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be punks.
They are not there to give people a warm, fuzzy feeling about the world. For that, there is always James Blunt or Coldplay.
Punks are there to channel the anger and alienation that many feel against the hypocrisy and bigotry of society. And at Glastonbury, both Kneecap and Bob Vylan held a mirror up to the UK over its support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Cue hysteria and confected outrage.
Rapper Bobby Vylan’s chant on a sunny afternoon at the Glastonbury music festival began with the familiar “free, free Palestine”. The crowd chanted along with him, highlighting the widespread support for the Palestinian cause among festival-goers, and among wider British society.
He then said: “But have you heard this one?” As he launched into a chant of “death, death to the IDF”, referencing the Israeli army, the crowd roared the same line back in response.
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“We’re not pacifist punks … Sometimes you’ve gotta get your message across with violence,” the rapper said on stage, “because that is the only language that some people speak.”
Bobby Vylan, however, did not call for the deaths of Israelis, as the Mail on Sunday’s front-page headline falsely claimed – one of the more blatant printed lies for which the Mail has become known over the decades.
Now the band are paying the price for this burst of rage at mass murder and western complicity: US tour visa cancelled, agent contract axed, police investigation launched.
Genocidal violence
After almost two years of a genocidal campaign in Gaza, the desire to dismantle Israel’s military apparatus might be a natural reaction for the millions of Palestinians whose lives have been destroyed, their homes turned to rubble, and their children starved and killed by that army.
Most of all, they want an end to war – not just this war, but any future onslaught waged against them by the Israeli state. After nearly eight decades of recurrent wars, occupation, dispossession and massacres, they simply want to live in their homeland without fear of being terrorised by the Israeli army.
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Millions of people around the world are disgusted and outraged at the vast number of Israeli crimes recorded by Palestinian journalists, doctors and aid workers in Gaza for more than 20 months. But that outrage does not seem to be shared by our political rulers, who put the protection of Israel above international law, or even basic humanity.
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy was all over the media condemning the BBC for broadcasting Bob Vylan and Kneecap, describing what she called “appalling and unacceptable scenes” at Glastonbury. On the actual massacres taking place at the hands of the Israeli army, she has no such words after nearly two years of slaughter.
Last year, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, were accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court. Nothing happened.
The Israeli army does not need protection from a punk poet at Glastonbury. It needs to be held to account for its crimes
Israeli soldiers frequently engage in genocidal racism through chants such as “death to Arabs” and “may their villages burn”.
The very fact that the Mail falsely rewrote Bobby Vylan’s chant suggests that the words “death to the IDF” were not seen as sufficiently inflammatory, even among the newspaper’s readers. It also implies that Israel and its military are indistinguishable; that Israeli society is the army.
According to figures from Israel, about half of all Israelis serve in the army. It is a conscription society, and the army is the most powerful and revered institution in a militarised settler-colonial nation. Most of its rulers were veterans of Israel’s many wars.
Bobby Vylan did not call for the death of Netanyahu or any other Israeli leader. He called for an end to the most violent force on the world stage today. No other military force brazenly and routinely carries out such extreme atrocities against men, women and children, and boasts about them openly.
On Monday, the IDF bombed a cafe on Gaza City Beach, killing photojournalist Ismail Abu Hatab, visual artist Frans al-Salmi and 31 others. It did not make the Mail front page, like countless other Israeli atrocities. No words of condemnation from UK political leaders.
Israeli soldiers recently told Haaretz that their commanders ordered them to shoot starving aid seekers as they approached aid hubs in southern and central Gaza.
One soldier said that Palestinian aid seekers were “treated like a hostile force – no crowd-control measures, no tear gas – just live fire with everything imaginable: heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars”. The soldier added: “I’m not aware of a single instance of return fire. There’s no enemy, no weapons.”
Manufactured outrage
But now, rather than focusing on these crimes, the British media and politicians are up in arms over the words of a punk poet and the BBC’s broadcasting of this event as part of its live coverage of Glastonbury.
Glastonbury organiser Emily Eavis put out a statement distancing the festival from Bobby Vylan’s words, condemning antisemitism, calls to violence, and hate speech.
Lisa Nandy claimed in the House of Commons that “Chanting ‘death to the IDF’ is the same as calling for the death of every single Israeli Jew.” Lord Ian Austin, the government’s trade envoy to Israel, called on police to “investigate as a matter of urgency and, if necessary, arrest the band members”.
On Monday, police launched a criminal investigation into the Glastonbury performances by Bob Vylan and Kneecap.
As various commentators have noted, calling for the death of an army accused by major human rights groups of carrying out a genocide is not antisemitic. Claims to the contrary in right-wing media and by British politicians are disingenuous at best. At worst, such claims are themselves antisemitic, suggesting that Jewish people in general are indistinguishable from the Israeli army, amid all the crimes it is carrying out to this day.
Sharren Haskel, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, conflated the band’s chant with anti-Jewish hate, telling the Mail on Sunday: “Because the target is Israel – let’s be honest, because it’s Jews – it’s tolerated, even broadcast. This is clearly incitement.”
The attempt to manufacture outrage over a punk band’s chant, even putting words in their mouth to whip up fear among Jewish people, is itself a dangerous, incendiary act.
As socialist Jewish activist Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi told me: “He didn’t say death to Israelis [civilians], he said death to the IDF, a murderous armed force. His slogan is already being taken up on demos in Australia and elsewhere. It’s not calculated to win people of a delicate disposition to the cause, but if you try to repress legitimate outrage against a televised genocide, this is what you will get.”
Bobby Vylan – real name Pascal Robinson-Foster – said in a statement on Instagram: “Teaching our children to speak up for the change they want and need is the only way that we make this world a better place. As we grow older and our fire possibly starts to dim under the suffocation of adult life and all its responsibilities, it is incredibly important that we encourage and inspire future generations to pick up the torch that was passed to us.”
The Israeli army does not need protection from a punk poet at Glastonbury. It needs to be held to account for its crimes.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
