Lyrics Don’t Kill. Bombs Do.
Bob Vylan shouted. The IDF shelled. One got cancelled. The other got armed. Tell me again who’s dangerous. Britain’s media isn’t blind, it’s complicit.
In late June at Glastonbury, during what was meant to be a celebration of art, music and freedom of expression, the British media found its next scapegoat. Bob Vylan, a politically conscious artist known for his outspoken views on race, class and injustice, took to the stage and uttered a phrase that sent half the press into frenzy: "Death to the IDF. From the river to the sea, Palestine must be – will be – free. Insha Allah."1
It was, admittedly, a provocation. No artist of sound mind enters a major UK festival and says “Death to…” anyone without intending to shock. But what followed was not proportionate outrage, it was orchestrated hysteria. Keir Starmer2, who increasingly governs with a fear of upsetting the Mail more than a fear of losing integrity, called it “appalling hate speech.” Glastonbury, the very festival that used to brand itself as anti-establishment, quickly distanced itself. The BBC labelled the words “offensive3.” Ofcom began asking questions. And the United States revoked Bob Vylan’s visa4. All for words. Meanwhile, the deaths continue in Gaza, not symbolic ones, not rhetorical ones, but real, bloody, final.
Let’s get some facts straight before we indulge more pearl-clutching. Since October 20235, when Hamas committed a horrific massacre of civilians in Israel, including at a music festival, Israel responded with overwhelming force, flattening homes, bombing refugee camps, razing schools and hospitals. As of June 2025, over 50,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed. Thousands more starve, suffocate under rubble, or die queuing for bread. British citizens are not only silent participants, they’re active ones. At least 80 Britons have fought with the Israeli Defence Forces6. Some have even joined illegal settler militias in the West Bank.
Yet not one mainstream media house questions this. There is no tabloid outrage. No visa revocations. No questions from Ofcom. No condemnation from Sir Keir or Rishi, Biden or Trump. The IDF bombs hospitals and water tanks, and our government sells them more weapons.
The great deceit here lies in pretending this is about antisemitism. It isn’t. And let’s say it clearly: No, the IDF is not Jewish. The IDF is the military arm of a state. It does not represent every Jew, nor does criticism of it equate to hatred of Jews. But if we are told we must see the IDF as synonymous with Jewish identity, if we are told that condemning Israeli military actions is antisemitic, then someone is forcing a dangerous moral trap on all of us, and Jews should be among the first to resist it.
Let us be honest and harsh. We want death to the wrong. We want the defeat of the murderous armies of Vladimir Putin in Ukraine. We want the destruction of ISIS. We want every genocidal regime and ideology buried with the bones of their victims. So why is “Death to the IDF” different? The IDF has committed what many leading international jurists and human rights experts believe to be genocide7. Genocide against children, against medics, against the starving. If we cannot say “death to genocide,” then we have already surrendered our morality.
The hypocrisy is foul. The same media who call Bob Vylan’s outburst a danger to public safety cannot bring themselves to call out Israeli ministers who speak in genocidal terms without apology. “There are no innocent civilians in Gaza,” said President Isaac Herzog. “Wipe Gaza off the face of the Earth,” said Nissim Vaturi, an elected MP. “Animals that need to be exterminated,” said Yoav Kisch, Israel’s education minister. Not one of them sanctioned. Not one denounced by the British government. Not one banned from the United States. So who really is being selective with morality?
»Words kill careers. Bombs kill children. Guess which one makes headlines? The media’s outrage is selective. Gaza bleeds while Britain debates tone. Wake the fuck up.« — Vudi Xhymshiti.
What the press and political class are doing intentionally or not, is training the British public to accept genocide, to look away from mass death so long as it comes with the right branding. “The IDF is defending itself.” “Israel has a right to exist.” Yes, it does. But not at the expense of 50,000 dead. Not through the starvation of children. Not via an apartheid system that a dozen international human rights groups have confirmed exists.
We are being led into a selective empathy. To care only when the victims are European. To weep only when the perpetrators are enemies, not allies.
This isn’t justice. This is propaganda.
Bob Vylan’s words were furious, unfiltered and combustible. But they were not genocidal. They did not call for the extermination of a people. They did not carpet bomb a refugee camp. They did not drop opioids in humanitarian aid8. And most crucially, they killed no one. The IDF, on the other hand, has made Gaza a graveyard. And our leaders have not only remained silent, they’ve clapped.
There is nothing illegal, immoral or unjust about opposing genocide. There is nothing antisemitic about demanding justice for Palestinians. And there is nothing brave about pretending both sides are equal when one is under rubble and the other is in tanks.
We are not asking the impossible. We are asking for moral clarity. We are asking not to be lied to. We are asking not to be gaslit by media who shake hands with war criminals while condemning musicians.
We ask to be told the truth. Not just when it's comfortable. But when it's bloody, shameful, and necessary.
Because the world is watching us. And history will remember what we did, or didn’t do when faced with a televised genocide.
Justice must come first. Always.
What fools we are dear God, what heartless, spineless fools to sit in silence while children suffocate under rubble and mothers cradle bodies that no longer breathe. We debate decency while fathers dig graves with bare hands. We argue over slogans while babies die with flies in their mouths because food convoys were turned to ash. And we dare to call ourselves civilised. We dare to call them terrorists, when we are the ones funding the fire, selling the bullets, shaking hands with the butchers in polished halls. What monstrous arrogance must possess a nation to believe that a Palestinian child’s scream is somehow softer, less worthy of echo, than ours. That her blood is less red. That her life is less grievable.
And so, I say again: what fools we are, what utter, blithering fools to let ourselves be led, once again, down this blood-soaked path by men in suits who speak of “defence” while arming destruction, who call for calm while funding carnage.
Do you think a Palestinian mother does not scream the same way a Jewish mother does when her child is torn to pieces?
Do you think grief knows a flag? That shrapnel spares the faithful?
We have been here before, blind, obedient, ashamed too late.
And I tell you now, history will not ask what Bob Vylan said at Glastonbury. It will not debate the volume or the fury of a lyric. It will ask what you did while children starved. While a people were erased. While you, comfortable in Westminster or at your keyboard, dared to call words the danger and genocide a debate.
This is not politics. This is the collapse of our shared humanity. And if your soul does not ache, truly ache, then you are not neutral. You are not balanced. You are not fair. You are lost. You are complicit. And when the graves are counted and the rubble cleared, your silence will scream louder than any chant on any stage.
When Sympathy Runs Out: Israel’s Lie About Iran
In the arena of geopolitics, the currency of credibility is both precious and precarious. As Israel once again finds itself under threat, this time from the Islamic Republic of Iran, it does so amidst a crumbling edifice of its own making: a long and increasingly untenable history of manipulating existential fear to justify aggression, and of demanding global sympathy while withholding it from others.
Glastonbury Festival organisers 'appalled' by Bob Vylan's IDF chants — YouTube Piece.
One Year of Unrelenting Grief: The Global Response to October 7, 2023
The October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks and Israel's retaliation left over 41,800 dead. World leaders, blinded by politics, enable Israel's genocide, using the Holocaust to justify atrocities. — The GPC.
Amnesty International investigation concludes Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza — AI.
Israel committing genocide in Gaza, says EU’s former top diplomat — The Guardian.
Israel committing 'live-streamed genocide' in Gaza, says Amnesty International — FRANCE24.
'It Is Important to Call a Genocide a Genocide,’ Consider Suspending Israel’s Credential as UN Member State, Experts Tell Palestinian Rights Committee — UN.