The government has “strongly condemned” chants at Glastonbury Festival from rap punk duo Bob Vylan calling for “death” to the Israeli military and broadcast live on the BBC.
Rapper Bobby Vylan led chants of “free, free Palestine” and “death, death to the IDF [Israel Defense Forces]” during their set, which came just before Belfast rap trio Kneecap.
A BBC spokesperson said some of the comments were “deeply offensive”, adding it had issued a warning on screen about “very strong and discriminatory language”. The set will not be available to rewatch on BBC iPlayer.
Police said they were reviewing videos of comments made by Bob Vylan and Kneecap to decide whether any offences had been committed.
It’s about as narrowly targeted a chant as you can get.
It’s not about jews. It’s not about israelis. It’s specifically the army of israel. If that’s not narrowly targeted enough, what’s acceptable? “Down with the members of the IDF who intentionally target civilians but not those members of the IDF who are willing to risk a court martial to make sure that they only attack valid military targets?” Doesn’t make a very good chant.
Good point, the IDF, being an occupying army, under international law is absolutely a legitimate target for violent armed Palestinian resistance