Britain’s BBC said it regretted not stopping the livestream of punk-rap duo Bob Vylan’s set at Glastonbury after the performance included chants against the Israeli military, drawing condemnation from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
The BBC has come under fire for allowing the performance to be shown live on Saturday as a Bob Vylan member led the crowd in chanting “Death, death to the IDF,” a reference to the Israel Defense Forces, following chants of “Free, free Palestine.”
The BBC, which broadcasts the festival in southwest England, issued a warning on screen while the set was being streamed online, but said on Monday it should have gone further.
The comments were “utterly unacceptable and have no place on our airwaves,” the national broadcaster said in a statement.
“The team were dealing with a live situation, but with hindsight, we should have pulled the stream during the performance,” the BBC added. “We regret this did not happen.”
The BBC said it would look at its guidance around live events so that in the future its teams are clear on what is acceptable content to be shown. It did not make the performance available on demand later via its streaming service.
Starmer said Sunday that “there is no excuse for this kind of appalling hate speech.”
“I said that Kneecap should not be given a platform and that goes for any other performers making threats or inciting violence,” he added. “The BBC needs to explain how these scenes came to be broadcast.”
Avon and Somerset police said Saturday that video evidence would be assessed by officers “to determine whether any offenses may have been committed that would require a criminal investigation.”
They are also examining comments by outspoken Irish rap trio Kneecap, one of whose members wore a T-shirt dedicated to Palestine Action Group, which is about to be banned under UK terror laws.
Organizers of the Glastonbury Festival said in a statement that they were “appalled” by the anti-Israel chants in Bob Vylan’s set.
“Their chants very much crossed a line, and we are urgently reminding everyone involved in the production of the festival that there is no place at Glastonbury for antisemitism, hate speech, or incitement to violence,” said the festival.
Amid the anti-Israel rhetoric from some of the performers at the music festival, which draws some 200,000 people annually, some in the crowd used the tradition of waving large flags during performances as an opportunity to draw attention to the plight of the hostages taken by Hamas terrorists during the October 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
They also drew attention to the victims of the October 7 massacre at the Nova music festival, where some 380 people were brutally killed, among the 1,200 people killed in the Hamas attack.