By Michelle Goldberg
The band was not the only one at Glastonbury to cause a scandal. Even before the festival started, Starmer criticised it for featuring the Irish rap group Kneecap on the lineup. In April, Kneecap led crowds at Coachella in chants of 鈥淔ree, free Palestine鈥 and displayed messages accusing Israel of genocide, prompting the sponsor of their US visas to drop them. Footage later emerged of one member of the band, Mo Chara, displaying a Hezbollah flag, leading to a terrorism charge. (He has said the flag was thrown onstage and he didn鈥檛 know what it represented.) The police are also investigating Kneecap鈥檚 appearance at Glastonbury for possible public order offences.
Both these bands intended to be inflammatory, and they succeeded. 鈥淲hat happened at Glastonbury over the weekend is part of a coordinated, ideological insurgency against the Jewish people,鈥 Ayaan Hirsi Ali wrote in The Free Press. 鈥淭he level of depravity displayed at #Glastonbury2025 was astonishing, one that should prompt serious self-reflection and soul-searching among British society,鈥 wrote Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League. It鈥檚 hard to remember the last time musicians managed to cause such outrage.
I understand why supporters of Israel are frightened and disgusted by the spectacle at Glastonbury. Many see no reason other than antisemitism for growing progressive hostility to Zionism. They鈥檝e witnessed Jews being attacked, demonised and ostracised in the name of justice for the Palestinians. They find it especially bitter to see violence against Israel cheered at a music festival less than two years after a music festival in Israel was attacked by Hamas.
But while antisemitism surely drives some animus toward Israel, it鈥檚 not nearly enough to explain why so many idealistic young people have become so deeply invested in the cause of Palestine and so sickened by the pulverisation of Gaza. To understand why, you need to grasp what Israel鈥檚 war in Gaza looks like to them.