Earlier this year, the London punk-rap duo Bob Vylan performed at Glastonbury and led the crowd in a chant of "death, death, death to the IDF." In the aftermath, the group's US visas were revoked. They were dropped from festivals and removed from Gogol Bordello's European tour. Since then, they've taken issue with the ways in which the event has been portrayed in the media. The Manchester Evening News apologized for wrongly reporting that they had "performed Nazi salutes on stage." Now, Bob Vylan are taking legal action against RTÉ for the Irish state broadcaster's reporting on their Glastonbury set.
The Irish Times reports that Bob Vylan have "issued defamation proceedings" against RTÉ. I'm pretty sure that means they're suing the broadcaster, but that's not the verbiage that the newspaper uses. In their court filing, Bob Vylan say that RTÉ claimed they'd led "anti-Semitic chants" at Glastonbury, which the duo says is completely false. They're seeking damages.
For years now, certain parties have conflated any protest against Israel's genocidal military campaign with antisemitism, and that's the big issue here. Is a chant against the Israeli Defense Forces the same as an attack on Jewish people in general? Many of us would say no.
In a statement, Phoenix Law, the Belfast law firm representing Bob Vylan, says, "Our clients are no stranger to utilising their freedom of expression to speak out against the genocide in Gaza. There is however a fundamental distinction between speaking critically about the role of the Israeli state forces, and being anti-Semitic. The former is speech within the confines of political expression, whereas the latter is a form of hatred directed towards Jewish people. At no stage have our clients ever engaged in conduct that is remotely anti-Semitic and to that end, have had no option but to seek the formal correction of same via the remedies available within this litigation."
RTÉ is not historically known for being aligned with Israel. In fact, it's one of the four national broadcasters boycotting next year's Eurovision Song Contest over Israel's participation. RTÉ declined to comment on Bob Vylan's litigation.
