The Glastonbury Festival, once a place of peace and collective respect for the joy of music, now serves as a platform for the promotion and support of vicious anti-Israel incitement.

by Shayan Gutman, VJ Staff Writer

When the frontman British music duo Bob Vylan took over the West Holts stage at Glastonbury 2025 on Saturday, he did not hesitate to chant pro-Palestinian slogans to an adoring crowd.

The duo’s singer and guitarist bounced energetically across the stage in front of Palestinian flag-waving fans as he chanted “Free, Free …” turning his microphone towards the crowd for them to finish the slogan with a fierce collective shout of ‘Palestine’.

The singer did this a few times before deeming the slogan not powerful enough. He then turned to the crowd and began shouting, “Alright, have you heard this one though?,” following it up with “Death, Death to the IDF.’

With the crowd applauding the catchy new slogan, shouting it back to him at the top of their lungs, Vylan continued to voice his supported for Jew-free genocide: ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine must be. Will be. Inshallah, it will be free’.

The BBC had originally aired the Bob Vylan set live, putting out a warning about ‘very strong and discriminatory language,’ deciding later to remove the set entirely from its streaming service, though the damage had already been done.

The Israeli Embassy in the United Kingdom has officially condemned the chants of ‘Death to the IDF’ made during Bob Vylan’s performance at the Glastonbury Festival. In a statement, the embassy expressed being “‘deeply disturbed by the inflammatory and hateful rhetoric expressed on stage at the Glastonbury Festival.” They further stated that such slogans “advocate for the dismantling of the State of Israel and that when these messages are delivered before tens of thousands of festival goers and met with applause, it raises serious concerns about the normalization of extremist language and the glorification of violence.”

The embassy said that “calling for the death of the Israel Defense Forces — which includes Jewish, Druze, Bedouin, Christian, and Muslim citizens — is an incitement to murder. It glorifies terror and contributes to a climate of antisemitic violence.” They added that such rhetoric “crosses the line from political protest into a call for bloodshed.”

As UK government officials voice their agreement and support of the Israeli Embassy’s statement, other Jewish groups around the world have had strong reactions to the video, its message and the live on-site reaction it had. Some Jewish groups, such as the Board of Deputies of British Jews, denounced the chant as ‘a chilling reminder of how easily antisemitic rhetoric can masquerade as activism.’

Tory MPs have launched calls to investigate the band and festival organizers for violations of the UK’s strict anti-incitement laws. British police said they were considering whether to launch an investigation. “We are aware of the comments made by acts on the West Holts Stage at Glastonbury Festival this afternoon,” Avon and Somerset Police, in western England, said on X late on Saturday.

“Video evidence will be assessed by officers to determine whether any offenses may have been committed that would require a criminal investigation,” the police statement said.