In her song “Shake it Off” Taylor Swift sings that “the Players gonna play, play, play and “the haters gonna hate, hate, hate”. When it comes to Israel and the Jews there is of course no shortage of hate, hate, hate. Music is not the cultural unifier it is cracked up to be.
Despite the savage rape and murder of hundreds of young music lovers at the Nova music festival when Hamas invaded on October 7, the deranged obsessions of the haters see no irony when they use their platforms at other music festivals in the West to promote further discord. Harmony appears not to be on their minds. The gargantuan efforts made to exclude Israel from the Eurovision Song Contest are an indication of the dissonance.
Kanye West’s descent into raw antisemitism and self-professed Nazism has recently been headline-grabbing. Even for this government, his embrace of Nazi iconography in merchandise and song titles such as Heil Hitler and Gas Chambers was too much – and he was banned from entering the UK as a person adjudged “not conducive to the public good.”
The organisers of the Wireless Festival gave no impression of regretting their decision to book the controversial artist and even mounted an extraordinarily tone-deaf defence for West. Journalists then kept asking about forgiveness – but if a far-right white supremacist member of the Ku Klux Klan were trying to enter the UK, would the same voices have asked for his remarks to be forgiven?
We have heard more than enough about Bob Vylan and Kneecap in recent months. And now Kanye West dominated the Easter bank holiday headlines – creating more discordant tones for the Jewish community.
The failure of the British authorities to press mute on expressions of hatred – whether that be the police, Crown Prosecution Service or the Government – has had the harmful consequence of normalising antisemitism and extremism. It also removes any real sense of responsibility or pressure on the likes of festival organisers not to book such artists in the first place.
The failures of the state were perhaps best encapsulated by the lack of consequences for Bob Vylan following the infamous Glastonbury appearance last summer. While the BBC was embroiled in a scandal for their indefensible broadcasting of calls for the killing of Israelis, the chant exploded online and at protests across the country. To this day, it continues to feature at Bob Vylan’s concerts – and was heard in the Prime Minister’s own constituency in recent months.
The Kanye West saga also has echoes of the West Midlands Police scandal. The organisers of the Wireless Festival asserted that “multiple stakeholders were consulted in advance of booking [Kanye West] and no concerns were highlighted at the time”. Again, this suggests a blind spot to the harms of antisemitism, let alone providing it a platform to reach 150,000 in a London park.
As with the Maccabi Tel Aviv debacle, it appears that a Safety Advisory Group for the event exists, including Haringey Council, the Metropolitan Police, and other interested parties. What role did it play?
Were the Department of Culture, Media and Sport or Home Office consulted? Was the local Jewish community consulted?
This all raises troubling questions about the willingness of record labels, music venues and publishers not only to provide these artists with a platform but to gain financial reward from their notoriety.
There is also a lesson here for corporate sponsors of music festivals. It might be wise for potential sponsors of future events to do some careful due diligence given the risk of harm to their brands and bottom lines.
But it’s good to know that not all music icons dance to the same tune.
Boy George recently posted on X his support for Israel, writing: “It’s very trendy to hate Israel, but I have always said ‘fashion for the fragile, style for the brave.’" Lady Gaga also recently came under attack when an old clip emerged of her performing in Israel years ago and expressing her love for her Israeli fans. Boy George defended her from the inevitable backlash. These courageous artists are music to the ears of those in our society who want to dance to a different tune from those who are always gonna hate, hate, hate.
I don’t want to sound like a stuck record, but it is time the music industry and the government get their houses in order. They should be singing from the same hymn-sheet and making good on a zero-tolerance pledge to tackle anti-Jewish racism.
Sir Michael Ellis served as Attorney General for England and Wales from September to October 2022, and from March to September 2021
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