The Glastonbury Music Festival is Britain’s version of Woodstock. However, this last weekend it turned into a festival of antisemitic hatred led by a British duo and an Irish punk rock band. For those of us who understand history and know why repeating it is bad for the world, this is what they did. 

At the largest music festival in the United Kingdom on Saturday, thousands chanted “Death to the IDF,” echoing a performer who also told them to “not give up your dreams” even when they’re “working for Zionists.”

A British government spokesperson condemned the rhetoric used on stage by Bobby Vylan, which was aired on the BBC, as did the organizers of the Glastonbury music festival on Sunday.

(The Bob Vylan punk duo consists of singer/guitarist Bobby Vylan and drummer Bobbie Vylan. They use stage names to hide their real names.)

Vylan encouraged the crowd at Glastonbury, in Somerset, southwestern England, which drew about 200,000 revelers this year, to chant “Free Palestine,” adding, “Alright, but have you heard this one though?” before shouting: “Death, death to the IDF.”

Thousands chanted it back, some waving PLO and Lebanese flags.

“Hell, yeah, from the river to the sea, Palestine must be, will be, inshallah, free,” he added, using the Arabic word for “God willing.”

It is obvious that the Vylan rappers have absolutely no shame. They KNEW what they were doing in inciting the crowd. 

“Death, death to the IDF” chanted from the stage by Bob Vylan in front of 200k people at @glastonbury.

Tens of thousands singing happily along.

This is coming to NYC #ZohranForMayor pic.twitter.com/t6vtHVhNQa

— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) June 28, 2025

And their antisemitic chants sure did evoke memories – VERY BAD ONES – of the 1930’s rally in Nuremberg, Germany. 

Nuremberg Rally 1935.

Glastonbury 2025. pic.twitter.com/QbcULcryKd

— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) June 29, 2025

People around the world were understandably outraged.

It was the punk rap act Bob Vylan that appeared to whip the crowd into a frenzy of Israelophobia. The lead singer first got them chanting ‘Free, free Palestine’, the mandatory holler of every bourgeois youth who’s determined to prove his virtue to his peers. Then he upped the ante. ‘Death, death to the IDF’, he barked, and the audience went with it. Like a Pavlovian pack, they mimicked the rocker on stage and shrieked for the violent demise of the army of the Jewish nation.

Let’s speak frankly – our moral crisis is too pressing for pussy-footing. ‘Death to the IDF’ means the death of Jews. First, because the soldiers of the IDF are predominantly Jewish. But more importantly because this is the force tasked with defending the Jewish homeland from the armies of anti-Semites that surround it. The IDF is the only thing standing between the Jewish State and its genocidal obliteration by the apocalyptic bigots on its borders.

There is absolutely no other way to describe what happened at Glastonbury. The Vylan duo and the Irish Kneecap punks all unequivocally called for Israel’s death. And the crowd cheered. 

BBC News aired this live. They didn’t cut away when the first chants started; they kept the cameras rolling. 

Yet now, due to worldwide backlash, the BBC and British government have “regrets” about the situation. 

The BBC, which broadcasts the festival in southwest England, issued a warning on screen while the set was being streamed online, but said on Monday it should have gone further.

The comments were “utterly unacceptable and have no place on our airwaves,” the national broadcaster said in a statement.

They can have regrets all they want. They stepped on all the rakes, are definitely part of the problem, and they know it. But hope we don’t see it. 

As Melanie Phillips reminds us, Palestine has one overriding goal. The annihilation of Israel and all Jews around the world. She notes that no one there was advocating for death to Russia or China. Nope, Jews were the sole focus of their gleeful hatred. Shades of Nuremberg indeed. 

The chants encouraged and led by the Vylan and Kneecap bands, along with quite a number of other bands at the Glastonbury Festival were outright incitements to murder. 

Bob Vylan stands by his threatening chant against Israeli soldiers at Glastonbury:

“I said what I said.”

The rapper has refused to back down and apologize after he led a crowd of tens of thousands to chant “Death to the IDF”- sparking global outrage.

In an Instagram… pic.twitter.com/x3lWyZGBnf

— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) June 30, 2025

Bobby and Bobbie Vylan had a planned 20-city tour across the U.S. starting later this summer. But no longer. 

The @StateDept has revoked the US visas for the members of the Bob Vylan band in light of their hateful tirade at Glastonbury, including leading the crowd in death chants. Foreigners who glorify violence and hatred are not welcome visitors to our country.

— Christopher Landau (@DeputySecState) June 30, 2025

That’s the key. We now have an Administration who is stepping up against antisemitism and the glorification of violence. We’ve already seen that in their stance against the virulence on display with the campus protests. And now, the antisemitic Vylan bros won’t be allowed to come into the United States and peddle their hatred. And, the UTA Talent Agency has drop-kicked the band to the curb. 

As we’ve tragically seen, the incitement against Jews in this country and around the world has led to vicious attacks and killings. Instead of attempted murder charges, the Boulder terrorist is now being charged with murder. 

Karen Diamond, who is in her 80s, died after suffering severe injuries in the attack, and 13 other people were physically hurt, according to prosecutors. Based on Diamond’s death and the identification of more than a dozen additional victims, the Boulder District Attorney filed new charges Monday morning.

The virulent hatred that has crawled out from under all the rocks is definitely a cause that led to Karen Diamond’s death. 

Rescued hostages such as Noa Argamani are standing firm against this hate. 

Hamas came. Hamas kidnapped me. Hamas murdered my friends. But I won; I survived. Now, I speak for those who can’t.

I’ll keep exposing Hamas’ crimes and fighting for the hostages’ release—including my partner, Avinatan.

I refuse to let terror sympathizers control the narrative. https://t.co/93jfdPDAKW

— Noa Argamani (@ArgamaniNoa) June 28, 2025

In less than three years as Aviva points out here, we went from watching Jews being slaughtered at a music festival to people AT a music festival calling for their slaughter. 

Ayaan Hirsi Ali gives us a blunt warning after seeing the antisemitic hatred flowing from Glastonbury. 

We name it. We expose it. And we snuff it out. That means rejecting the lie that the “Free Palestine” movement is a harmless expression of solidarity with oppressed people. It’s not. It is a political warfare operation run on Maoist principles and Islamist grievances.

We must stand with the Jewish community. Not quietly, not conditionally, but unequivocally. Because the alternative is absolute hell on Earth. Jews are once again being cornered, othered, and isolated. Not in the shadows, but in classrooms, boardrooms, and brunch tables—masked by politeness, cloaked in progress, and met with applause.

If we don’t step up, this will continue and it will get worse. 

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Feature Photo Credit: Bob Vylan in LA in 2022 via Wikimedia, cropped and modified