Great Britain is not so great for Jews

Last weekend in Glastonbury, UK, home of the annual festival of artists, at least one unknown rap-punk (whatever that is) artist, Bob Vylan, decided to up the ante on the now-favorite anthem of “free Palestine” to the ghoulish “death, death, to the IDF” interactive audience chant. Romping shirtless across the stage, Vylan decided to turn his anti-Israel anthems a notch into a hate sing-along.  The almond latte lemming crowd cheered him on. It seemed to go with the flow on the first chant, and although some hesitated on the second, they did not seem very enthusiastic about the word “death”; eventually, the lemmings fell in line.

Amid a sea of waving Palestinian flags, the word “death” did not seem to sink in at all. A sad testimonial to a nation and its youth, who seemed oblivious to the fact that they were demanding the death of citizens and the destruction of a country. This display of blatant hatred was sponsored and blessed by none other than the BBC. The national broadcasting company, which once gave us the slow, determined voice of Winston Churchill in defiance against the enemy, or the Queen’s dignified voice when opening Parliament, is now an open voice to anti-Israel hate speech, downplaying attacks on Jews, and allowing antisemite toads like Vylan to incite death. To put this into context, in 2021, the BBC ranked third on the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Global Antisemitism Top Ten list. It earned this prestige for false reporting on Israel and incidents involving Jews. One would think that it would take the hint or at least show some shame or remorse. Not this media rag.

Bob Vylan is as consequential as pond scum, but when the BBC allows such a display of hate on stage and broadcasts it live across the world, it elevates bad taste. It brought to the forefront the danger that living in Britain as a Jew is hazardous to your health. Jewish communities throughout Great Britain have reported a rise in threats and antisemitic incidents over recent years; however, these concerns have been relatively ignored.  The Glastonbury festival, sponsored and broadcast live on the BBC, should have raised red flags from the start. BBC does not have a good track record when it comes to reporting on Israel. Its reports are predominantly biased and often neither vetted nor verified. The intoxicated idiots waving Palestinian flags should have given authorities a hint that the anti-Israel rhetoric would rise to a level of hyperbole. The UK government has done very little to curb media rhetoric such as the BBC, which, according to Eglash (July 1, 2025), 92% of its reporting is anti-Israel or anti-Jewish.

An independent investigative journalist, David Collier, who monitors antisemitism, has remarked that what happened in Glastonbury was a “team effort” of antisemitism because neither the BBC nor its employees at the festival removed the shirtless ghoul from the stage or pulled the plug on the broadcast (Eglash, July 1, 2025). Collier summed it up as a collective “genocidal antisemitic ideology”, where the UK government ignores the apparent threats to Jews in the collective mindset of Israel hatred, harming them and their communities without accountability or repercussions. Starmer pays lip service to a situation that has been brewing for a decade and has escalated since October 7^th.

The Community Security Trust, a monitoring organization on antisemitism in Great Britain, has reported 3,528 antisemitic hate crimes in 2024 *. One would think that these figures would give the British government pause to think. Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAM) CEO Sacha Roytman said that most Jews in the UK feel threatened as the normalization of antisemitism rises. CAM blames institutions like the BBC, which openly allows violence incitement against Jews through its refusal to take responsibility for its tainted reporting on Gaza, and for downplaying hate speech when it comes to Israel*. According to Danny Cohen, a former BBC director, the BBC violated its own hate speech rules at Glastonbury by abetting the display of hate by one of the artists.

Eglash (July 1, 2025) reported that the UK-based journalist and antisemitism activist Nicole Lampert points out that the BBC is government and taxpayer-subsidized. Such inherent hatred within a well-established British institution can only be described as inherently sick. The Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs, Amichai Chikli, urged Jews to leave the UK. According to him, the BBC crossed a “dark line” when it did not stop the incitement of death against IDF soldiers, and normalized hatred as entertainment. It does not get lower than that.

The BBC, in a moment of pseudo repentance, echoed Starmer’s sentiments, admitting that it should have stopped the performance and the offensive “comments”. I have a message for the BBC: those were not offensive comments; offensive comments are calling someone with parentage a bastard.  That was pure and unadulterated hate for a nation and its people. The Hamas-loving goblins fail to understand that an Israeli is not always a Jew. They could be a Christian or a Muslim. All Israelis serve to protect their country. This unmitigated ignorance is conveniently ignored by the likes of Greta Thunberg and her band of privileged justice fighters, as well as the bottom-feeder Bob Vylan, who, until this antic, was relatively just an unknown twit. Vylan and the rest of the Gaza activist lemmings also forget the 200 or more music lovers who were massacred at a similar festival in Israel on October 7^th. There were no cries of “death to Hamas”. The silence is obscene.

In November 2023, an article by Felix Pope in The Jewish Chronicle echoed Daniel Cohen’s sentiments about the BBC. The former BBC director accused the BBC of inaccurate and reductionist reporting of the October 7th massacre, by calling it a “cross-border attack” and referring to Hamas as militants. It took the BBC weeks and, after being pressured, to correct this report, but the damage was done. This included the false report on the al-Ahli hospital attack as being Israeli, which was debunked by major media outlets as a misfired Hamas rocket from Gaza. It again took time for the BBC to correct their reporting, which Daniel concludes is either an inability to manage or an embedded antisemitic culture within the bowels of the organization.

A June 30, 2025, Jerusalem Post editorial laid out the systemic antisemitic problem in the UK. The open hostility toward Jews has not only increased in the UK but has flourished in politics, especially the Labor Party, on campuses, and in neighborhoods. Synagogues vandalized, and students harassed and labeled Zionist as an excuse for more harassment, threats, and hate. The British stiff upper lip has morphed into propaganda for Hamas, which attacked and killed families and took men, women and children hostage. The omission of facts that members of the UN organization UNRWA and local Gazans took and held hostages in an enclave of terror and death is never discussed or brought up. Hostages are still missing, their fates unknown. The BBC is silent.

The virtuous heroes of British progressives are the once prestigious campuses and youth espousing Marxist ideology while relishing their designer jeans and privileged neighborhoods. It is fashionable to hate Jews and Israel. This is the UK of today. The once stalwart society that fought fascism in Europe and vowed to fight the evil of the Third Reich is now taking a page from the same playbook and perfecting it with immunity.

Vylan is not the only antisemitic ghoul. Irish band Kneecap are runners up. The latter is no surprise since Ireland is one of the most antisemitic countries in the EU. According to the AP (Hui, June 30, 2025), British law enforcement has opened a criminal investigation into both bands as a “public order incident”: whatever that means. They did not exactly break a few windows; they incited death and the obliteration of a country. OfCom, which regulates broadcasting, is “concerned” about the BBC allowing the performance to continue. The BBC defended itself by saying that it had issued disclaimers of “strong discriminatory language”. Is that like labeling a packet of cigarettes as being bad for you? As of this writing, the BBC has not shown the live performance of Kneecap but has left an unedited version on its iPlayer (Hui, June 30, 2025). I guess it is not antisemitism if streamed.

Hui’s AP report added that Israel is criticized for the deaths in Gaza. However, the report also acknowledges that the Gaza Health Ministry releases the numbers without differentiating between civilians and “combatants.” Meaning that terrorists are included in the list to up the ante on public sympathy. Such polite rhetoric in the face of blatant misinformation is not only unethical but morally bankrupt, and any media “reporting” in such a manner should have its journalistic credentials revoked. For starters, Hamas is not a combatant; they are a terrorist organization.  A fact purposely omitted or missed when the BBC or other media of their ilk report on Gaza. The Gaza Health Ministry is the same body of individuals who allow Hamas to hide weapons in their hospitals and basements. Releasing any information from a dubious organization within a terrorist group is not only gross negligence in reporting, but a blatant disregard for truth in journalism.

The good news is that both Vylan and Kneecap have had their future shows cancelled in major UK cities and are temporary pariahs. I use the word temporarily because we all know that this is a reprieve to suit the conscience of Starmer and the BBC. Unless these artists and activists, including the Swedish anti-Israel Greta Thunberg and her posse are charged with hate speech and inciting anti-Semitic violence, this ghoulish behavior will remain unchecked.

Antisemitism in the UK has been rising since 2021. Quoting Golda Meir as saying that Jews have nowhere else to go but Israel, The Jerusalem Post (May 23, 2021) published an op ed by Harkov, who argued that the rise in antisemitism, in Western Europe is a perfect example of historic ignorance.  The diaspora exists because Jews were historically persecuted and driven from their indigenous Levant, or ancient Israel that encompassed the entire region of modern Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria.  Persecution by Babylonians, Romans, Crusaders, the Ottoman Empire, and every other entity in between, scattered Jews throughout Persia and Europe, not by choice, but by necessity. The attacks on Jewish establishments and Jews predominantly in Western Europe, the US, and Canada are reminiscent of the early 20^th century; an attempt at driving them out. However, such misguided actions are the motivation for Jews to return to their ancestral home; Israel, the same piece of land that Gaza activists want Jews to vacate.  A combination of intentional stupidity and inbred jew hate—a bad combination. This leaves one to conclude that the “final solution” has come a full circle but this time the countries that fought the Nazi evil are publicly and intentionally condoning it and participating in it.

A few days after October 7^th, our Rabbi made an astute and disconcerting prediction that after the initial support for Israel, the same nations and politicians supporting it would turn against it. I was not as skeptical because I would not allow myself to believe that people could be that dumb or evil. I was proven wrong.

*Eglash, R, M. (July 1, 2025). Even before Glastonbury Festival hate chants, UK Jews warned of alarming rise in antisemitism. BBC broadcasts antisemitic chants as UK Jews report record hate crimes | Fox News

Harkov, L. (May 23, 2021). Israel’s secret weapon: We have nowhere else to go – comment. The Jerusalem Post. Israel’s secret weapon: We have nowhere else to go – comment | The Jerusalem Post

Hui, S. (June 30, 2025). UK police probe Bob Vylan’s festival chants against Israeli military, as US revokes band’s visas. AP World News. UK band Bob Vylan investigated by police and banned from US over chants against Israeli military | AP News

Pope, F. (November 20, 2023). BBC is ‘institutionally antisemitic’, says corporation’s former director of television. BBC is ‘institutionally antisemitic’, says corporation’s former director of television – The Jewish Chronicle – The Jewish Chronicle

BBC ranked third on ‘Global Antisemitism Top Ten List’ by Jewish organization. (December 28, 2021). BBC ranked third ‘Global Antisemitism Top Ten List’ Jewish organization | The Jerusalem Post

The history of Jew-hatred is repeating across the UK – editorial. (June 30, 2025). The Jerusalem Post. https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-859412