‘Death to the IDF’?

The revocation by America’s State Department of visas to the British punk rock group “Bob Vylan” is a moment to mark America’s clarity in respect of antisemitism. On Saturday at the Glastonbury Festival of Performing Arts the group led some 200,000 people in chants of “death, death to the IDF,” a reference to the Israel Defense Forces. The carnival of hate was livestreammed on the British Broadcasting Corporation, which has apologized.The deputy secretary of state, Christopher Landau, reports on X that the visas were revoked in light of the group’s “hateful tirade at Glastonbury, including leading the crowd in death chants. Foreigners who glorify violence and hatred are not welcome visitors to our country.” Bob Vylan was to begin in October a concert tour in America that included north of two dozen performances. Mr. Vylan was unrepentant in social media posts over the weekend.Mr. Vylan’s act at Glastonbury also involved a monologue in which he called a former Jewish boss of his a “fucking Zionist.” In addition to America taking action, United Talent Agency has dropped Bob Vylan, and even Glastonbury, where Palestinian flags outnumber any other standards, was moved to declare that there “is no place … for antisemitism, hate speech or incitement to violence.” The BBC likewise reckoned that outburst “antisemitic.”One irony is that Bob Dylan, on whose name Bob Vylan’s name trades, wrote one of the greatest defenses of Israel, “Neighborhood Bully.” Mr. Dylan describes the Jews as having “been driven out of every land / He’s wandered the earth an exiled man / Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn / He’s always on trial for just being born.” Yet “Every empire that’s enslaved him is gone … He’s made a garden of paradise in the desert sand.” Word that Bob Vylan’s visas would be canceled comes the same day as the news that one of the victims, Karen Diamond, of the firebombing of a group of pro- Israeli hostage demonstrators at Boulder, has died from her wounds. The attacker expressed a desire to “kill all Zionist people and wished they were all dead” and shouted “free Palestine” as he tossed Molotov cocktails. Bob Vylan also chanted “free Palestine” from the Glastonbury stage.All of this is to say that the rhetoric of antisemites like Bob Vylan is best taken both seriously and literally. That is a lesson that has so far not been learned by the presumptive Democratic nominee to be the mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani. He pointedly refuses to disavow the cry to “Globalize the Intifada,” which is a call for violence if there ever was one. Nevertheless, Jewish elected officials like Congressman Jerry Nadler line up to support him. Our Julie Burchill, who has written from Britain for decades, notes the death chants led by Bob Vylan are even more vile in the context of Hamas’s slaughter at the Nova Festival on October 7, 2023. Terrorists also murdered at the Bataclan at Paris in 2015 and a suicide bomber wreaked havoc at an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester in 2017. All to say that it is particularly odious to see the festival crowd fall in line behind the jihadists.Prime Minister Starmer likewise condemned the performance, and the Avon and Somerset police have opened an investigation into Bob Vylan and another band, Kneecap, that openly supports Hezbollah. Perhaps it is dawning on those responsible for England that calls for Jewish death double as threats to the well-being of their own nation. Bravo to the Trump administration for taking steps to protect America from this poison.

‘Death to the IDF’?

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