While the British right-wing press continues its obsession with punk bands and protest chants, it remains astonishingly quiet about the devastating human toll in Gaza. Each day, Haaretz, a liberal Israeli newspaper, reports the growing death toll of Palestinian civilians, figures that rarely make it into the headlines of the Mail or the Sun.
News tends to move in cycles; what’s front-page outrage one day becomes chip paper the next. Unless, of course, the right-wing media smells ideological blood. Then the headlines can drone on endlessly, often with disproportionate fury.
That’s exactly what’s happened in the wake of this year’s Glastonbury, where a handful of musical acts dared to speak politically, most notably Kneecap and Bob Vylan. Weeks later, right-wing outlets are still hammering away.
Take the Sun, which ran with this headline this week:
“VILE CHANT: Kneecap chants ‘f*** Keir Starmer’ in another foul rant just days after sparking police probe at Glastonbury.”
The hip-hop group from Northern Ireland had appeared at Finsbury Park and the Sun was quick to remind readers that this was “less than a week after police launched a probe into their Glastonbury set.”
The Mail on Sunday has been similarly relentless. Its recent front-page read: “Jewish music bosses who called for Kneecap ban at Glastonbury targeted after names are leaked.”
The article continued: “More than 30 of Britain’s top music industry moguls have been targeted in a vicious online campaign that falsely brands them ‘supporters of genocide’ in the Middle East, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.”
Another of the Mail’s headlines thundered: “BBC chiefs ‘should face charges’ over Glastonbury… Outrage led by Keir Starmer grows after broadcast of vile ‘death to Israeli soldiers’ chants.”
The suggestion, of course, is that Glastonbury artists crossed a line into incitement or antisemitism. But the truth is more complicated, and less headline-grabbing.
The chant in question was not “death to Israelis,” as the Mail’s front page claimed, but “death to the IDF” – the Israeli Defense Forces. Whatever your view is on it, the distinction is not trivial.
In a statement responding to the backlash, Bob Vylan clarified: “We are not for the death of Jews, Arabs, or any other race or group of people. We are for the dismantling of a violent military machine — a machine whose own soldiers were told to use ‘unnecessary lethal force’ against innocent civilians waiting for aid. A machine that has destroyed much of Gaza.”
And the rappers aren’t alone in calling out the media’s glaring imbalance. Journalist Adam Bienkov summed it up on X: “If only there were half the outrage over Israeli soldiers shooting starving people queuing for food as there has been towards some rappers mouthing off at Glastonbury, we’d be in a very different place.”
Indeed. While the British right-wing press continues its obsession with punk bands and protest chants, it remains astonishingly quiet about the devastating human toll in Gaza. Each day, Haaretz, a liberal Israeli newspaper, reports the growing death toll of Palestinian civilians, figures that rarely make it into the headlines of the Mail or the Sun.
And let’s be honest: if more of that journalistic energy were directed toward the mass suffering in Gaza rather than chasing clickbait outrage over artists and expletives, public discourse, and public awareness, might look very different.
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