After tens of thousands of people chanted “death to the IDF” and “free Palestine” at a music festival in Glastonbury, survivors of the Nova Music Festival explain how the footage of this incident adversely affected them.
By Rachel Avraham
According to the Combat Antisemitism Movement, at “Glastonbury Festival’s West Holts Stage on Saturday, before an estimated 30,000 attendees, British rapper Bob Vylan led the crowd in chants of “Death to the IDF” — an explicit call to kill Israeli soldiers — and “Free Palestine,” a slogan that has increasingly been weaponized as a rallying cry for violence against Jews around the world.”
According to the report, he then escalated further, shouting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine must be, will be free” — a genocidal demand for the destruction the State of Israel. The Combat Antisemitism Movement noted that the crowd, waving hundreds of Palestinian flags, erupted in applause and the antisemitic demonstration was broadcast live on the BBC, Great Britain’s national television station.
The Israeli Embassy in London condemned the festival in a scathing statement: “Chants such as ‘Death to the IDF’ and ‘From the river to the sea’ are slogans that advocate for the dismantling of the State of Israel and implicitly call for the elimination of Jewish self-determination… When such messages are delivered before tens of thousands of festivalgoers and met with applause, it raises serious concerns about the normalization of extremist language and the glorification of violence.”
Former BBC Television Director Danny Cohen added: “That something like this might happen could easily have been foreseen by the BBC… Allowing it to be broadcast is a very serious failure, and further evidence that BBC management are blind to their responsibility to Britain’s Jewish community.”
Following the antisemitic disturbances at the music festival in Glastonbury, the Combat Antisemitism Movement interviewed a group of survivors from the Nova Music Festival and asked them how they felt about what happened there. Natalie, one of the survivors of the Nova Music Festival Massacre, related: “Seeing what happened in Glastonbury last weekend left me feeling saddened and triggered. “Ron, another survivor, added: “As an Israeli person and a survivor of the Nova Music Festival Massacre, it feels like if I want to go to an international music festival, I might need to hide my identity.”
Shye, another survivor, asked rhetorically, “Why would I want to go to a music festival and watch artists and thousands of others cheer on the fact that myself and thousands of other young adults were almost murdered at the hands of a murderous terror group?” Millet, another survivor, recounted, “When we went to that festival, it did not matter where we came from and who we are. We just came to celebrate peace and to dance. And we were massacred and raped and kidnapped.” Raz, another survivor, noted, “When I saw the Glastonbury footage, I felt really disturbed. I was in shock. I felt angry. I felt sad. I felt scared.” For all of the survivors in the Combat Antisemitism Movement video, what happened in Glastonbury was a traumatic experience for them and the survivors asked that people refrain from hating them for who they are for they simply want to live in peace.
Photo from Diario AS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCxZsWBdldY