‘Death to the IDF’ is not antisemitic. Reserve your outrage for Israeli crimes in Gaza
Rapper Bobby Vylan, part of the punk duo Bob Vylan, performs at Glastonbury in Somerset, England, on 28 June 2025
Joe Gill writes in Middle East Eye on 1 July 2025:
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. “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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The Israeli army does not need protection from a punk poet at Glastonbury. It needs to be held to account for its crimes.