This Bob Vylan furore is a distraction from finding an end to the bloodshed

It was obvious from the moment that the first reports emerged from southern Israel on 7 October 2023 of the scale and depravity of the Hamas attacks out of Gaza, that the response of the government of Benjamin Netanyahu would lead to massive loss of Palestinian life. In turn (if so much less important) the attack and its aftermath would mean rancour, bitter division and accusations and incidences of antisemitism and callousness towards Palestinians here in Britain. For good and bad reasons, Palestine has long exerted a much greater pull on the radical conscience than almost anywhere else in the world.

So Glastonbury was in one way inevitable. It fits into a template that has become established over the last few months. X says Y about the Israeli actions in Gaza or Z fails to say Y about Israeli actions in Gaza, somehow it involves the BBC and someone demands that the BBC launch an inquiry into it. Questions are asked in the Commons, the chief rabbi complains, the Muslim Council of Britain complains, the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, phones the director general, the BBC apologises, the shadow home secretary, Chris Philp, demands prosecutions, GB News says it’s all the result of mass immigration, the Sun calls for the BBC to be defunded.

Meanwhile, no one outside a tiny circle of wonks takes any interest in how we could possibly help end the bloodshed that was the ostensible cause of all this anger.

So, as we all now know, last Saturday afternoon on the West Holts stage – the third biggest in Glastonbury – the Northern Irish group Kneecap (one of whose members was due in court after allegedly displaying a Hezbollah flag at a concert) was booked to play immediately after a two-person punk band – Bob Vylan (get it?) with a history of militant support for Palestinians. Two groups whose whole schtick is performative anger, what could possibly go wrong? The BBC’s live-streaming was not going to feature Kneecap but apparently no one warned the producers about Vylan. The Eavises dropped the corporation right in it.

By the time the band’s vocalist Pascal Robinson-Foster began the chant “death to the IDF”, it had already warmed up the crowd with “free, free Palestine” – potentially controversial, and more people had joined in with that than the distinctly Ayatollah-sounding “death to” chant.

Is “death to the IDF” antisemitic? I don’t think so. If Jews are not synonymous with the state of Israel (and we tend to insist that we aren’t) and if we can imagine another army or leader that is accused of highly visible war crimes being treated in the same way (eg “Death to Putin” or “Death to the Myanmar junta”) then I think we can argue that the trigger is the war crimes, not the ethnicity of the perpetrator.

But before that chant Robinson-Foster had treated the crowd to a rant about a former employer that most certainly was antisemitic. “We’ve done it all, from working in bars to working for fucking Zionists…” he told them, referring to someone from the music industry who had signed an open letter calling for Kneecap to be disinvited from the festival. “Who do I see on that fucking list of names?” demanded Vylan, “But that bald-headed cunt I used to fucking work for.”

“Zionist” in this instance can only mean “Jew” and right there is encoded an entire legend of money-grubbing Jews running the music industry. The leftwing commentator Ash Sarkar, who attended the performance and defended the band on Channel 4, seems to have missed this moment altogether. It happens.

But what about the crowd? If the chant itself is unusual and disconcerting, it’s worth remembering that fans can be persuaded to chant almost anything by their heroes. They are there for the music, the experience and for being able to post pictures of themselves on Instagram, not the politics. Many are pretty naive. After the performance, one Bob Vylan fan went on social media to say that he had no views on the Gaza issue but that the row had to be good because of the attention it would bring to one of his favourite groups.

Fans forgive non-musical sins. In 1976, at the height of the National Front’s brief period of electoral success, David Bowie told Playboy that in his opinion Britain could benefit from a fascist leader and added: “Adolf Hitler was one of the first rock stars.” In the same year, Eric Clapton treated fans in Birmingham to his view on the need to “stop Britain becoming a black colony”.

Apologies followed, but these emanations helped to inspire the Rock Against Racism movement, which in 1978 in London’s Victoria Park brought together up to 80,000 fans to listen to The Clash, Tom Robinson, Steel Pulse and X-Ray Spex. I don’t recall if they chanted the popular slogan “The National Front is a Nazi front, smash the National Front”, but it seems possible.

Forgotten now, except by us oldies. In the here and now no possible good can come from prosecuting anyone for what was said and done at Glastonbury, and I’m reasonably sure the local fuzz will draw the same conclusion. If your act is about being transgressive, what could make you more attractive to your fans than your being persecuted?

As for blaming the BBC, that’s just daft. I watched one discussion about what the BBC music team should have done. According to a former senior Channel 4 figure there should have been a political producer in the gallery hovering over the output, ready to advise a sudden blackout or a switch-over to another feed from another part of the festival. It was almost as if this was a farcical version of September 5, the recent movie about the ABC sports broadcasters who found themselves live broadcasting the taking of Israeli hostages by Palestinian terrorists at the Munich Olympics in 1972.

But imagine how YouTubers would have treated that moment when the BBC cut one feed and suddenly streamed another? It would have become an anti-censorship meme and Vylan would be countercultural heroes. Because it’s precisely the transgression that many will enjoy about performances from Bob Vylan and Kneecap. It’s music to rage to, to get your rocks off to and justify your nearly £400 ticket by shouting about poverty and Palestine, while having a really good time and then getting home safely to tell everyone who couldn’t get a ticket what a great time you had.

Meanwhile the chairman of the BBC must be relieved that nothing like that could ever happen at the Proms.

Photograph by Yui Mok/PA