“If you can’t see it now, you never will. The sight of tens of thousands of people at Glastonbury yesterday joining in a spirited chant of ‘Death, death to the IDF’ was the sight of us officially becoming a very different country, I fear. One in which anti-Israel hysteria has so flawlessly rehabilitated Jew hatred that it has become unthinking, conformist, almost mundane. Something that Home Counties idiots can jive to before adjusting their hot pants and heading off to catch Charli XCX. Something that is broadcast by the BBC into millions of homes. The banality of the new anti-Semitism.
“Let’s not muck about here. When punk-rap duo Bob Vylan called for the killing of Israeli soldiers yesterday – as they warmed up the crowd at the West Holts Stage for every Israelophobe’s new favourite Irish rap trio, Kneecap – they weren’t opposing war. They were calling for war, and on the one army on Earth charged with protecting Jews from genocide. The army now at war with a jihadist cult that murdered, raped and kidnapped its way through an Israeli festival not unlike Glastonbury on 7 October 2023. The army that almost all Israelis are expected to serve in. Indeed, those making excuses for that sickening call-and-response yesterday hopefully don’t know that Hamas justifies killing Israeli civilians on the grounds that they are basically all tainted by national service. That they are all enemy combatants. Death, death to that IDF?
“Whether we got here by ignorance or conscious hatred is pretty much moot. The end result is British Jews – at Glasto or at home – watching thousands whoop as Jew-killing slogans are recited. Frontman Bobby Vylan also treated the crowd to a deranged rant about the indignities he suffered working for a ‘Zionist’ at a record label, because he had to listen to his boss talk favourably about Israel. I wonder if he knows that the vast majority of British Jews are Zionists. I wonder if he cares.”
Pop concerts seem to prompt exhibitions of behaviour that can put markers in the ground for a culture, or – as we saw in Manchester Arena (UK, 2017), Bataclan and other attacks in Paris (2015) and in Israel on 7 October, 2023 – indicate the level of evil that Islamism represents, and a need to confront it.
The new book by Douglas Murray seems apposite.
What, if anything, should be done about the specifics at Glastonbury? Well, it seems that if there is a law around incitement and it should be enforced consistently, then there are grounds to deal with those principally involved in shouting these chants if they are deemed incitement to engage in violence. I guess if you’re in a band called “Kneecap”, it does rather tilt the scales of justice against you. Just saying.
I cannot be sure, but I’d be interested to know the demographics of the crowd, and what proportion are English and middle class, university educated, etc. I’d say quite a large chunk.
What can we do?
Perhaps we should defund the BBC. It won’t stop antisemitism – but is something we can do to remove the blessing of the Establishment from such events.
It would also send a message to other media outfits that uncritically jump on the anti-Israel bandwagon.
My understanding is that Spiked (for which Tom Slater writes) takes the view that Kneecap don’t deserve the oxygen of publicity. That they ought to be ignored. I agrre. The best thing that ever happened to the cos-play Fenians was getting scrobbled by the rozzers. They are really going to enjoy their day in court aren’t they? I’m saying that partially as a free speech absolutist and partially because I despise them with every fibre of my being. I support Israel whole-heartedly (not unequivocally – utopia does not exist) because it is an outpost of civilization in a desert of Hell.
I admire Israel’s pluck and determination. I admire their technology and can-do spirit: Thunderbolt and Opera spring to mind. All big lies that have legs have a sort of kernal of truth. Israel is not a colonial enterprise but has brought genuinely western values to somewhere that needed them badly. And that is why it can monster the entire air defence of a country not exaactly next door and with ten times the population. I could go on…
Long live the IDF!
DJ,
Whilst I agree that the BBC is an ill-relevance (sp intended) that is not an easy job. You might as well try and defund the NHS. Both have made themselves “National Treasures” with a devotion from the general populace greater than the Church of England ever managed.
I think this is (somewhat) relevant as a contrast.
From 1981, roughly 10 years after it first started as a hippy festival near the Druidical Jerusalem of the nearby town it’s named after, the Glastonbury Festival was organised in conjunction with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. CND, remember? Pacifism, love-and-peace-man? The creed of choice for the anti-establishment bourgeois youth at that happy sweet-spot in life where the circles of family income, adulthood, and freedoms from personal responsibility overlap.
As a youthful subculture, the hippies were rather silly, but aside from some fairly widespread Class-B possession with intent to supply,they were essentially a low-crime group, requiring almost nothing in the way of expensive policing or secret-squirrelling – and apart from their penchant for facial hair and self-indulgent guitar solos they wouldn’t harm a fly.
Fast forward to 2025 and Michael Eavis – who owns the farm which hosts the festival, and has been knighted for services to music and charity, the latter of which are undeniably considerable – has given up sticking it to the Man, and become The Man. Leaning in to Jeremy Corbyn, kneeling at Windsor Castle. Expect him to attend Cabinet meetings before this government’s race is run. But as a peer of the realm, Eavis now has to do his duty. His sanitised, Establishment-Approved music festival – as central to the Season as Wimbledon, or Glyndebourne – has been seen to be advocating war and violence, with a side order of rabid anti-Semitism, on his land, in front of a huge international audience, and making him lots and lots of money in the process.
Quite the pivot, you might say.
Now that the precedent has been set, courtesy of the BBC, I assume it’s now OK to publicly chant, “Let’s kneecap kneecap”, or “Let’s hang Bob Vilayn”.
Penseivat,
Of course it isn’t. The older I’ve got the more aware I have become that believers in “Freedom” essentially only believe in “freedom” for there own words and actions. More than a hundred years ago self-righteous prigs burnt the works of Oscar Wilde after he was convicted for sodomy. The spiritual descendents of those prigs now ask The Guardian’s advice column if it’s OK to let their kids read Harry Potter novels because JKR is a “transphobe”. There are always enemies of liberty and their greatest trick is to shift the goal posts.
In days of yore people objected to Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Hucleberry Finn” because of it’s depiction of the escaped slave, Jim, as a decent, noble man. Fast forward to th 1990s and the State of Georgia bans the book over “racism” because of the n-word of doom. My then GF’s mum lead the (successful) campaign against this idiocy. It helped that she had some clout in the state by being the head of the US South Easten AMA. Oh, she was also a Jew.
We aren’t anymore free. Tyranny just changed clothes.
On the other hand, we could just do a fly past on people who are okay with killing Palestinian babies, no?
is that beyond the pale?
(I’d not heard of Bob Vylan before. Turns out they’re pretty fucking good, if you’re an old school punk)
When the B-2s dropped the big ones on Iran’s nuclear facilities, this was designed in part to fuck up the regime that has openly sought Israel’s destruction. It has its fingerprints all over October 7.
I’d like to see those who criticise Israel’s actions since that pogrom explain a credible alternative.
But all we get is deflection.
neonsnake,
That would be very wrong because it would also be celebrating Hamas. Hamas deliberately built bases under maternity hospitals.
“I’d like to see those who criticise Israel’s actions since that pogrom explain a credible alternative.”
Or Explain what they would expect their own country’s actions to be if such an attack happened there.
The name “Operation Rising Lion” for Israel’s military action against Iran is derived from a biblical verse and is meant to symbolize strength, courage, and determination. Specifically, the name is linked to Numbers 23:24, which speaks of a nation rising up like a lion. The lion is also a symbol associated with pre-revolutionary Iran, adding another layer of meaning to the operation’s name.
Yes, it is very much the latter. The pre-revolutionary Itanian flag had a lion and sun motif.
Now just take a second to dream…
Imagine an Iran free of the Ayatollahs. It could happen. It would be a Berlin Wall moment. Israel and the USA have not been playing regime change but their recent actions may prove catalytic and that would be a glorious day.
I just hope that the Eavis family is unable to exercise a tax loophole when passing ownership down the family.
A patently obvious commercial entity which gives away less than 10% of its takings should not benefit from charitable status although heaven knows how many others do. If pops survives 7 years they may dodge IHT (although Rachel might have something to say about that) but the transfer of a business asset like the shares is unquestionably a chargeable transaction for CGT whether rolled over or not.
The action or inaction of HMRC will be an interesting indication of how far the two-tier tentacles have spread through all areas of the state.
First of all, from what I saw only the crowd (and perhaps only part of it) watching the act joined in with the chant “Death to the IDF”, thereby perhaps making them un-uniformed combatants in a distant war, outside the Geneva Convention as it happens and some might consider legitimate targets for the IDF, but they strive to follow the law. One cannot assign collective guilt, and one must consider proportionality and what lawyers call ‘A wonderful opportunity for comment’.
I suppose the BBC didn’t broadcast the 2-minutes silence held at the start of this year’s Glastonbury festival for those hundreds of Nova music festival goers murdered on 7th October 2023 by Hamas, probably because the 2 minutes silence didn’t happen, but if it had, I doubt that they would have shown it anyway.
Carl Benjamin has an interesting take on the Glastonbury types.
Mr Ed, yes, I watched Carl’s video. Absolutely nailed who these dimwits at the festival are.
Do you honestly not see a difference between people who are defending their own land against aggressors, and those aggressors who won’t leave or stop or slow their efforts to kill all of the first set while bringing their babies along with them?
If I throw my baby at you while running at you with a knife, are you morally at fault for batting the baby out of your way?
There are few situations in the world in which I see such a stark divide between the good guys and the bad guys. Pity the poor Gaza kids. But lay blame correctly.
“from the river to the sea”, seven million dead Jews, was also repeated.
But the crowd also cheered and chanted attacks on BRITAIN – vicious attacks on Britain, on the British people, on anyone who wants to keep Britain British.
It must be stated WHO this crowd are – they are NOT Muslims (no Muslim worthy of the name would be at a scene of lunatic perversion like the Glastonbury festival), and they are mostly NOT black or brown people either, they are mostly young English men and women from well off backgrounds.
These are the sort of people who end up government ministers, corporate managers, senior officials and judges – yes, eventually, judges. And NO they do not change their opinions – as the sick antics of the judges clearly show (Lucy Connolly is, sadly, only one victim among many of vicious acts of injustice by despicable judges), and Parliament is no better – with its abortion-up-to-birth and its “assisted dying” for the old and sick.
This country is buggered – the “ruling class” do not “just” hate Jews, they hate Britain, especially ENGLAND – they hate their own country, their own people.
neonsnake – the people who are “O.K.” with the deaths of Muslim babies are Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the other Muslim groups, as they believe if they use their own babies as human shields it is fine – because the babies will go to Paradise.
You have a nice day now – bless your heart.
I’m not sure B-2s would be the appropriate vehicle.
I envision, instead, a team of camouflage-clad aeronauts in paragliders, appearing from nowhere and swooping low over the Glastonbury crowds while seeming to aim suspiciously rifle-like objects at the audience while playing loud recordings of machine-gun fire.
If nothing else, it should ensure that the event’s Portaloos are overloaded more quickly than usual…
NickM – the Islamic Republic of Iran Tyranny was on the ropes, it really was. The Iranian people were close to freedom – and then the regime was let-off-the-hook. And, of course, it is back to mass executions of the Iranian people.
It is hard not to despair.
Just as it is hard not to despair about domestic policy – not just Britain (which is doomed – see above), but also the United States – where a Republican President (and he is no worse than the others) a Republican House of Representatives and a Republican Senate are doing nothing (NOTHING) about out-of-control government spending.
Sadly the old Puritan, Roger Sherman, has been vindicated – once money is no longer physical gold and silver, government spending will explode – till society is utterly undermined (debauched).
Why? Because-they-can.
Allow governments and their corporate friends (remember “bank licences” are a gift from the government – if an ordinary person lent out “money” that does-not-exist they would go to prison for fraud, and rightly-so – which is why “free trade in banking is free trade in swindling”) to create “money” from nothing and corrupt spending will explode.
They will indeed spend like “drunken sailors” – or, to update the metaphor, like drug abusers at Glastonbury.
And so the West ends – yes in tragedy, but also in farce.
Honourable mention should be made of Charles Holt Carroll of Boston (United States).
C.H.C. asked a basic question – why do we do refer to “Dollars”, “Pounds” and so on?
If these are just names for a given weight of a commodity (gold or silver – or some other commodity) of a certain purity, then there is no need for the name “Dollar”, “Pound” or whatever – as, in prices and contracts we can simply refer to the weight (of a given purity).
But if, on the other hand, these words “Dollar”, “Pound” and so on – do NOT refer to a set weight of a commodity – then the words are not just useless, the are dangerous.
They are dangerous as they open the door to massive fraud by governments and banks and other corporate bodies – and these “private” corporate bodies can be just as corrupt as governments.
Anyone who thinks that the Federal Reserve is “private” or that BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard or the Credit Bubble banks are “private” in the sense that Mr Jones the local farmer or grocer is “private”, is wrong – just flat wrong.
And NO Mr Putin is not an alternative to any of this – he loves fiat (fiat – edict-whim) money, how do people think he funds his war in Ukraine?
The Ruble is just as much a fraud as the Dollar, Pound, Euro (and so on) are.
There is no cash – not in reality.
When my father was born Mr J.P. Morgan (who lent out three “Dollars” for every Dollar of physical gold that he actually had) was considered a crook – by modern standards he-is-a-saint.
Sadly, we should remember that we the voters failed to deliver to Trump the monolithic Congress that is needed to pass tough legislation.
We have three very different sets of “Republicans” in the various chambers, and too many of them are quite hostile to Trump and his goals.
“Kneecap” is named after their beloved IRA’s habit of shooting people in the kneecaps – which means you are crippled (and in pain) for the rest of your life.
The name says it all – and the young richlings, the future officials, corporate managers, government ministers and judges, cheer them to the skies.
Hence my statement that this country, the United Kingdom, is buggered.
bobby b – I do not deny what you say.
Indeed I might well end up like Senator Ron Johnson (a person I admire) voting FOR the “Big Beautiful Bill” – because the alternative is even worse.
Glancing through the spiked article, I notice no mention is given to the other inflammatory comments by Bob Vylan that were targeted at Brits rather than Israelis.
This article mentions them though:
“‘Heard you want your country back’, ran one line. ‘ha! – shut the f*** up’. That came with an onstage backdrop of the line, “This country was built on the backs of immigrants.’
As a Brit rather than Israeli, I’ve got a bigger problem with the above. At least Farage and Rupert Lowe picked up on this. They should really run with this. A psycho with dreadlocks telling Brits they can’t have their country and falsely claiming immigrants built Britain (we aren’t America and this is utter BS history) is completely incendiary, and if played back daily on TV would cause pro-immigration and multiculturalist sentiments to crater.
One good thing that come out of Glastonbury is I discovered Rod Stewart supported Enoch Powell. I knew Eric Clapton did but hadn’t heard that about Rod. I always preferred heavier music than what Rod makes, but I got to admire him for being pro-Enoch Powell.
“Shut the fuck up!” is hardly comparable to:
“Death to the IDF!”
“Long live the Intifada!”
“From the River to the Sea!”
At what point do “immigrants” stop being “colonizers”?
Disturbingly, I think the answer is “when they’re not white.”
Is this libertarian website making me more racist?
Given the lack of a credible ground to air to ground missile defense I feel that you could save a lot of money by hitting Glastonbury with a few B52s instead of insisting on stealth bombers.
Then again, I’m not sure if they’ve ever played there.