Met ‘investigating’ Vylan, Kneecap for “death to IDF” – but not Britons who actually participated in genocide

Wishing death on foreign state’s criminal military committing genocide is simple free speech – no Brit owes fealty to Israel’s military and UK state is ignoring participation in it

Israel lobby groups have reacted with pearl-clutching outrage to the performances of Kneecap and Bob Vylan at Glastonbury yesterday in which the musicians shouted ‘Free Palestine and ‘Death to the IDF’. The Metropolitan Police are ‘investigating’ the comments to decide whether to prosecute, while the Starmer government condemned it and the BBC described the bands’ language as ‘very strong and discriminatory’:

Neither act called for death to Jews, or even Israelis generally. The so-called Israel Defence Force’ (IDF) is the military force of a rogue, genocidal state that has murdered around 400,000 civilians in Gaza, half of them children, and has made unprovoked attacks on its neighbours Lebanon and Syria, and on Iran and Yemen. The PM of Israel is wanted at the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and senior Israeli army officers are the subject of ongoing applications for prosecution against them.

For Israel to speak of ‘glorifying violence’ is grotesque – and well over a hundred British people have gone to Israel either to fight in Israel’s military during the genocide or to steal land from Palestinians as part of the coloniser state’s ethnic cleansing programme.

There have been zero prosecutions of British citizens for participating in the genocide and war crimes of the foreign power Israel, despite abundant evidence being submitted by international law experts to the Met detailing actual war crimes committed by ten of them, and the unequivocal obligation of the UK under international law to investigate and act.

In addition to its mass slaughter of civilians, the IDF:

• has imposed a starvation blockade on Gaza for almost four months
• is shooting starving refugees as they try to obtain food from the handful of Israeli-controlled ‘aid’ stations set up to ethnically cleanse Gaza
• has bombed every hospital in Gaza, destroyed every university, regularly bombs refugees in tents and shelters, caused Gaza to have the highest number of child amputees in history
• has executed men, women and children
• has raped hostages, including at least one – a doctor – to death
• used civilians as human shields before executing them
• intentionally and repeatedly murdered British aid workers in Gaza trying to feed Palestinian civilians, to silence from the Starmer government
• attacked and pirated a UK-registered aid ship in international waters, to silence from the Starmer government
• slaughtered hundreds of its own citizens on 7 October and blame it on Palestinians as a pretext for genocide – a fact acknowledged in Israeli media but ignored by UK media

and much more. Against these crimes and Israel’s illegal occupation, the Palestinians have a clear right to armed resistance under international law:

And as a state, Israel and its agents have:

• targeted and undermined critical UK politicians
• set off bombs in London as a ‘false flag’ to incite a crackdown on Palestinians in the UK
• bombed Jewish buildings in Egypt to try to draw the UK into a needless war and to drive Jewish Egyptians to flee to Egypt
• been filmed enlisting British citizens to help undermine former opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, who supports Palestinian rights and self-determination
• tried to divert UK aid funds to its military
• interfered in UK political and judicial processes
• threatened UK and other western politicians with ‘destruction’ if they interfere in Israel’s unprovoked attacks
• used terror tactics, unprovoked, that have killed large numbers of Palestinian, Lebanese and Iranian civilians.

These are the acts of a hostile state masquerading as an ally for its own ends – one that the current Starmer regime is all too eager to collaborate with in pursuing those who want an end to genocide through ‘lawfare’, the misuse of law to persecute and prosecute those who speak out.

No Briton, certainly none with a conscience, owes the foreign, rogue state of Israel anything but contempt. Skwawkbox does not wish death on anyone – all those involved in the Gaza genocide, including those in the UK, belong in front of the International Criminal Court at the Hague and then behind bars for life. But for any performer to be criticised for attacking the IDF, no matter how harshly, let alone to be ‘assessed’ and ‘investigated’ by police, is as ridiculous as going after ‘forces sweetheart’ Vera Lynn during WWII for hoping British troops killed the genocidal, war criminal SS.

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