In defence of Bob Vylan

For a minute, I wondered if I was actually on drugs. 

I’ve been a journalist for nine years. For nearly two years, I’ve regularly reported on the Middle East. On most days, I read through news coverage, eyewitness accounts, official reports, editorials and opinion articles, some informed, others unforgivably less so.

Since Hamas’s attacks on October 7, and throughout Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, other people’s opinions have been inescapable on social media. I’ve encountered a stream of ignorant antisemitism (largely, it must be said, on the younger, online left.) I’ve also seen a wealth of genocide apologism: intellectually flimsy or disingenuous justifications for what most can clearly see has become a massacre, whatever the provocation.

For 18 months, I’ve also been writing a weekly world news digest. Barely a week has gone by when I haven’t had to update on the devastation and death toll, the violent shockwaves throughout the region, the world’s complicity or condemnation, the doomed Israel-Hamas ceasefire, or sift through photos of Gazan rubble to find a usable picture, one without corpses. 

I’ve kept my mouth shut at social events when people talked of little else, or asked me to give my bite-sized “TLDR” like a performing seal. I’ve encountered massive pro-Palestine rallies on my way through London, dodging flags and chants ranging from impassioned to violently hateful. I’ve bitten my tongue at every pointless “All eyes on Rafah” posts, even by my friends. 

And not once have I written an article offering my opinion. I don’t have the expertise to add any value; beyond sharing my anguish and using whatever small platform I have to share information written by the decidedly more informed, I didn’t see the point. I’m also – not particularly relevant, but technically true – Jewish. I’ve never written about that, either. 

So with all that in mind, I’m “breaking my silence” (as the tabloids say), to tell you what I saw and heard at the now-infamous Bob Vylan set. 

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Thanks to a few weeks of very online pearl-clutching and manufactured media frothing, Glastonbury was rightly anticipating an enormous crowd for Kneecap. The Belfast-based hip-hop group were due to appear on the West Holts stage at 16:00; a notification arrived on everyone’s Glastonbury app at 15:15 to say that capacity had been reached. (Nice work, by the way, the Independent, whose Instagram post on the topic couldn’t even manage to get the name of the stage right, something they could have checked in seconds.)

This is in no way to downplay the popularity of Bob Vylan (on at West Holts directly before Kneecap from 14:30-15:30), but it’s a safe bet that most of the 30,000 people in that field were not there to see the relatively obscure rap-punk duo. They were there to nab a spot for a set that would, it was clear before the festival gates opened (and largely thanks to the voices trying to condemn it), go down in Glastonbury history. 

It’s also fair to assume that most of the Palestine flags were not – as I’ve seen widely suggested in the papers – there to wave on Bob Vylan, but in anticipation of Kneecap. The group’s stance on Palestine and Hezbollah has, after all, been their main catapult to mainstream fame/notoriety/one charge of a terrorism offence (denied). Plus, I saw the Palestine flag all over Worthy Farm. 

Somewhere between 15:10 and 15:30, after a rousing few rounds of “Free, free Palestine”, Bobby Vylan (the Bob Vylan frontman) asked the crowd: “Aite, but have you heard this one though?” He shouted “Death, death to the IDF” three times, and the crowd (mutedly) shouted it back once. He said it a fourth time; the crowd responded once more. He gave a fifth and final round, and the crowd sang it back. Not all of the crowd, not every time, and certainly with nowhere near as much passion as “Free, free Palestine”. 

Then Vylan rounded off with, “from the river to the sea, Palestine must be, will be, inshallah it will be free”. He then moved on with the set, which ended at 15:30. And that was it. Then from 16:00, Kneecap delivered one of the most electric, entertaining but fundamentally tongue-in-cheek sets I saw all weekend.

(Ironically, I was wary about the Kneecap set because I assumed that’s where I’d encounter antisemitic chanting. I wasn’t unduly fussed at either Kneecap or Bob Vylan: the vibe was indescribably harmonious. Did I chant along? No. Did the whole audience? No. Was I offended or threatened? Also no. I’ve heard far worse on street corners and social media feeds every week. I can’t speak on behalf of anyone else, but there it is.)

The BBC, which had already backed itself into a typically self-inflicted corner by announcing that it wouldn’t live stream the Kneecap set, left the net wide open for Bob Vylan to take a shot. Now, it has further twisted itself by apologising for the “utterly unacceptable” antisemitic sentiments, saying it should have cut away from the live stream when the “deeply offensive” comments began. That seems ambitious, given the entire segment lasted less than 40 seconds. Out of a whole hour. Plus, per BBC guidelines, a warning instantly appeared on the livestream screen about offensive language. 

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I’m not going to debate whether “from the river to the sea” slogan is antisemitic. Academics, NGOs, politicians and activists endlessly do so; you can take your pick from either side. The BBC seemingly has. “The BBC respects freedom of expression but stands firmly against incitement to violence,” said a statement put out today. “The antisemitic sentiments expressed by Bob Vylan were utterly unacceptable and have no place on our airwaves.”

The equalities minister, Jacqui Smith, has also nailed her colours to the mast: Bob Vylan “overstepped the mark”, she said. The festival organisers warned that “there is no place at Glastonbury for antisemitism, hate speech or incitement to violence”. 

But let’s for a moment consider the chant, “death to the IDF”. The Israeli Defence Force is an institution, a concept, as well as a large organisation of multiple people. The IDF stands for far more than the sum of its parts. It also stands for conscription: the forced draft of both men and women, many of whom desperately want the war to end, some of whom are refusing to fight on. The IDF also, for the purposes of a call-and-response chant, effectively rhymes with “death”. 

Bob Vylan are artists of bars and beats. They are also overtly political, with songs about toxic masculinity, racial inequality, police violence and poverty. Bob Vylan was performing a bit, in context –- and now so too is the commentariat. 

MPs who spend too much time on Twitter in search of relevance, and publications desperately chasing a high – those audience numbers, those wandering eyes, that sweet sweet traffic – are all egging each other on to greater heights of faux outrage. 

What we have here is a rotten facsimile of true public debate: as if AI did watercooler moments. “Free speech warriors” are once again shouting for “free speech” – unless you’re a black man, an angry woman, or someone with the “wrong” opinion on Israel-Palestine, whatever that may be. 

It’s not comparable, but many rappers and punk-fuelled acts are known for their performatively violent, often misogynistic lyrics. I can assure you, I was not the only feminist screaming “smack my bitch up” along with The Prodigy on Sunday night, as the sun set on Glastonbury 2025. Should they wait for a police knock for incitement to violence?

I cannot speak on behalf of Jewish people –- nobody can, no matter how hard some try when it suits them. But this type of false hysteria doesn’t help them at all. 

Personally I’d prefer to see the UK government tackle antisemitism by giving less ammunition – metaphorically and literally – to anti-Jewish sentiment, by condemning the bombardment and deliberate starvation of innocents, as well as the settler violence and illegal annexation, enacted by its ally. But instead, they waste their time playing to the crowd, hoping for an instant hit.