I wouldn’t personally choose to use the phrase "Death, death to the IDF" to condemn Israel’s evil genocide against the Palestinians, but Bob Vylan are a punk duo, so it’s hardly shocking that a British punk act would say something provocative, right?
We just need to consider the Sex Pistols’ iconic 1977 anti-monarchy protest song "God Save The Queen" to know that punk outfits being deliberately provocative is a British tradition going back decades.
The dumbness of the Bob Vylan moral panic can be traced back to the BBC’s decision to blacklist Kneecap from being streamed on their Glastonbury coverage, because BBC bosses wanted to prevent them from speaking out against Israel’s evil atrocities on our TV screens.
The BBC’s attempt at "cancel culture" backfired dramatically when multiple other musicians and groups used their Glastonbury sets to speak out.
Jade, The Libertines, CMAT, Amyl and the Sniffers, Wolf Alice, and Inhaler all made Palestine solidarity statements, and Bob Vylan grabbed the biggest headlines of all with what they said.
The BBC ended up broadcasting Bob Vylan’s anti-Israel and pro-Palestine statements, triggering an absurd moral panic that’s gone on for well over a week.
Bob Vylan have been dropped by their agents; had their US visas revoked; been threatened with legal action; and had multiple venues cancel scheduled performances.
BBC staff have been disciplined over it; the BBC head of music has resigned; and the corporation has brought in strict new rules to prevent the live broadcast of so-called "high risk" performances, which basically amounts to a "cancel culture" blacklist of non-conformist artists.
British musicians, artists, and creative people are being warned that if they do anything like speak out against Israeli genocide; criticise the government; condemn the monarchy; or express anti-capitalist sentiments, they risk going on the state broadcaster’s "high risk" blacklist of forbidden content.
You couldn’t ask for a more brazen example of the kind of "cancel culture" that right-wingers always make such a fuss about, as if merely criticising their horrible views constitutes "cancelling" them, yet loads of right-wing culture warriors and genocide-enthusiasts are gleefully celebrating this clampdown on free expression as if it’s the best thing they’ve ever seen.
The hypocrisy is absolutely off the charts.
The hypocrisy is also evident in the sinister move towards mass-censorship from the UK’s state broadcaster.
The BBC have repeatedly platformed Israeli extremists who have made much more explicitly extreme statements than anything Bob Vylan said, and never called them out on their genocidal views; support for war crimes like targeting of civilians, collective punishment, and starvation tactics; or the absolutely brazen lies they’ve been caught telling time and again about the atrocities they’ve been committing. Just a tiny selection of the catalogue of genocidal Israeli extremism detailed in the link below.
Just take a read of some of these catalogued statements by Israeli officials, and tell us if you really believe that what Bob Vylan said was so much worse than any of this, that they deserve "cancelling" while Israelis from the Knesset and the Israeli military who are responsible for such depraved views are still platformed by the BBC.
Apparently the BBC sees it as their duty to pre-emptively censor anyone who might express support for Palestinian civilians, or condemnation of Israeli genocide, yet figures from the Israeli parliament and Israeli military who openly revel in genocide are still welcome in BBC studios and on our screens.
Perhaps the most absurd thing about this moral panic is that it has elevated Bob Vylan from an obscure punk act that few people had ever even heard of, to household names.
Since their Glastonbury set Bob Vylan have been headline news every day for over a week; the subject of thousands of social media posts, talk shows, and opinion pieces; and half the country now knows of them.
Yes they’ve had gigs cancelled by a few venues, but their public profile is vastly bigger than it’s ever been. It’s as if the people who so desperately want to see them cancelled, silenced, and shunned have never even heard of the Streisand Effect.
In conclusion, Bob Vylan used a phrase I personally wouldn’t have to condemn the evil Israeli atrocities in Palestine, but they’re a punk band, and "shock, outrage, scandal … a punk band said something provocative" is one of the dumbest examples of performative outrage ever seen, especially when their provocative words were in reference to one of the greatest evils of our lifetimes.
The hypocrisy of the right is absolutely off the charts. They claim to love free speech and hate "cancel culture", but their glee at efforts to cancel Bob Vylan and revoke free speech on the BBC demonstrate their absolute hypocrisy.
The hypocrisy of the BBC is even more evident. Somehow they see it as their duty to pre-emptively blacklist British musicians who might show solidarity with suffering Palestinians or opposition to Israeli atrocities, yet they’re still happy to parade a bunch of lying, genocide-revelling Israeli monsters on BBC platforms, with no consideration at all of the "high risk" that they’ll say genocidal things, or continue advocating war crimes.
And it’s all so god-damned stupid, because the establishment order’s efforts to "cancel" musicians with conscience enough to oppose live-streamed genocide, like Kneecap and Bob Vylan, are giving them bigger public profiles than ever before.