The government has “strongly condemned” chants at Glastonbury Festival from rap punk duo Bob Vylan calling for “death” to the Israeli military and broadcast live on the BBC.
Rapper Bobby Vylan led chants of “free, free Palestine” and “death, death to the IDF [Israel Defense Forces]” during their set, which came just before Belfast rap trio Kneecap.
A BBC spokesperson said some of the comments were “deeply offensive”, adding it had issued a warning on screen about “very strong and discriminatory language”. The set will not be available to rewatch on BBC iPlayer.
Police said they were reviewing videos of comments made by Bob Vylan and Kneecap to decide whether any offences had been committed.
So this is pretty much exactly the line of reasoning that the nazis used to defend their participation in the holocaust. It wasn’t convincing then, and no, it isn’t convincing for the current genocide either.
Then we should be thinking hard about how these countries recruit. I am not saying defend the war criminals, but if you want to fight them you have to see how they work.
Look at all these countries that fought the nazis long ago and how they became more and more fascist afterward. you would think they would be smarter then this, but it is clear all the wrong lessons have been learned.
Sure, but that’s a whole different convo from finding “your honor, I had to murder the 5 year old; the alternative was a couple of months in prison and flipping burgers for the rest of my life” at all agreeable.
Agreed. But it sure does not feel like people here want to make that distinction.
I’m not sure I understand what you mean. To be clear about my own position in this:
Chanting death to the idf is, to me, morally equivalent to chanting death to the SS. Both are ok, even though the SS had forced conscription.
Forced conscription is bad, but not really on topic.
Again I agree. But I feel like we are simpling it to much. And I kind of feel like people are not making those distinctions. And it’s kind of galling to hear it from nice normal countries that dont have to deal with all this.
I still don’t really understand what you mean. What does “it” refer to? And what are nice normal countries?
By it I mean how the idf is used and it’s place in the Palestinian and Israeli conflict.
And by nice normal counties I mean counties that don’t have recruiters at high schools, that don’t do the pledge of allegiance very day at school, that don’t hit you over the head with how brave and great their military is and provide free healthcare an college to non military members.