Kneecapping Opposition

Bob Vylan and Kneecap are godsends for the Friends of Israel

A couple of days ago Sonia Poulton ran a live stream broadcast on YouTube - one of her series of investigations - into Israeli involvement in our political parties and cultural institutions. It was a powerful piece and I’d encourage you to watch the entire broadcast on-demand. In typical Sonia style she thoroughly researched the piece - focusing, in particular, on the UK wing of ‘Friends of Israel’. In a similar manner to AIPAC in the United States, the British Friends of Israel actively court and entertain British politicians of all colours. And the international network of Israeli ‘friends’ includes senior politicians in just about every Western nation. They parrot the lines. And every recent British Prime Minister (with the exception of Jim Callaghan) has been an active friend and ally of the Israeli regime.

After watching Sonia’s programme I thought just how powerful Sonia’s analysis was - and what valuable information and resources she had provided to those of us who have taken a stand, of sorts, against Israeli genocide in Gaza.

Many of us who would be deemed to be on the libertarian ‘right’ have drawn attention to Israeli brutality. But, clearly, the majority of activists for Gaza ‘freedom’ are from the so-called ‘left’. Nevertheless, there has been a growing non-partisan feel to anti-Zionist sentiment. And, as a result, it has been getting much more articulate and well-informed.

But this type of nuanced, well-informed argument presents a particular problem to Israeli friends in high places. It’s very difficult to counter an argument that’s well articulated, well researched and exposes concerning conflicts of interest at the heart of government. In such circumstances governments need arguments that are shouty, angry, ill-informed and laden with controversy - so that they can be side-lined or debunked. And, frankly, if no such arguments are forthcoming - arguments that can be condemned, vilified and labelled anti-semitic - then they’ll be manufactured.

Enter Kneecap. And Glastonbury.

For those of you who don’t know (and, frankly, I didn’t know until a few weeks ago when Kneecap hit social media) Kneecap is a ‘band’ from Northern Ireland. According to Wikipedia. Kneecap are an Irish hip hop trio from Belfast, Northern Ireland, composed of Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Próvaí, the stage names of Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, Naoise Ó Cairealláin and J. J. Ó Dochartaigh, respectively. They rap in a mixture of English and Irish. Who knew?

For several days we’ve had much media attention paid to this ‘band’ - and, in particular, whether they might be permitted to perform at Glastonbury. The media attention and interest in the band emanates from Mo and Co’s very anti-Israeli stance and support for Palestine. They’re sweary and Belfasty. And one (I’m not sure which) has a penchant for wearing an Irish tricolor coloured balaclava - thereby giving the ensemble a whiff of Irish paramilitaristic street cred.

When the band was given the green light to perform at Glastonbury, media attention was diverted to whether the BBC (joined at the hip with the Glastonbury organisers) might cover their ‘set’ as part of their coverage. But no. Handily, however, the BBC has been nurturing a relatively unknown rapper/poet chap called Bob Vylan. And the BBC decided to cover his set. Which handily included a “Death, Death to the IDF” chant. Cue lots of Israeli friend outrage today on Twitter.

Thanks to Morgan Chase on Twitter, we do know a little more about this Vylan guy. I’m paraphrasing a long-form tweet from Morgan here:

Bob Vylan - legal name Pascal Robinson-Foster of Ipswich - is a watered-down Rage against the Machine knockoff who rocketed onto the BBC’s Gaza-grief circuit weeks after 10/7. He’s the clown who led Glastonbury chants of “Death, Death to the IDF” on live TV during a terrible song.

The BBC pretended to be outraged. Meanwhile, they were already platforming him in 2006 with a feel-good segment about his life as a child poet.

Probably coincidence though, right?

Or that a Pascale Robinson-Foster is listed as director of Palestine Solidarity Campaign which pushes the usual Soros-flavoured “alt-media” intelligence outlets.

The Context: Emily Eavis (festival heir) and her husband Nick Dewey (head of music programming) run Glastonbury. They market the show as resistance.

This is the same festival that once hosted Oasis, Radiohead, Neil Young, Bowie, and The Smiths. Now we’ve got a Temu Buffalo soldier screaming recycled slogans over blown-out backing tracks while pretending to be the voice of the oppressed?

It’s a farm, a stage, and a state-approved protest pen.

The Result: the crowd feels radical, the BBC gets ratings…and this clown’s objectively terrible tracks shoot up the algorithm. Zionists couldn’t script a better limited-hangout if they tried.

Stop mistaking curated, politicised outrage for real opposition.

And she’s absolutely right, of course. Today even Kemi Badenoch (a good friend of Israel) is leading the orchestrated outrage. In a post on Twitter she responded to Pascal’s rant with, “This is grotesque. Glorifying violence against Jews isn’t edgy. The West is playing with fire if we allow this sort of behaviour to go unchecked. The cultural establishment needs to wake up to the fact this isn’t protest, it’s incitement.”

And, of course, Kneecap want their share of the action. In what seems to be a veritable social media engine-room, Kneecap has been spewing out magnificently produced videos and pithy social media content about their participation at Glasto and their hatred of Israel. It’s almost as though they have been preparing this material for weeks, aided by a social media army of designers and content producers.

I have no idea where these ‘musicians’ for Palestine have come from, or who funds their phenomenal social media war machine. But the results of their actions are very visible today. Every so-called right-wing commentator, journalist, leader-writer and campaigner wants to make clear just how abhorrent these apologists for Hamas violence are and just how anti-semitic they have always been. The message is clear. We all have to be friends of Israel today - and rally together to oppose these lefty jew-haters.

It’s interesting, however, the choice of name for Kneecap. Because, consider this. Kneecapping was an activity carried-out by - typically - IRA armed volunteers on those considered to be undesirable ‘in the community’. People who were subject to kneecapping were typically drug dealers stamping on IRA turf, so to speak. So ’kneecaps’ were punishment shootings that often resulted in victims losing legs or being left with life-changing injuries.

Today, the articulate voices against Israeli genocide have been kneecapped. All we’re left with are the curated chants and the politicised outrage.