Nana Akua delivers her verdict on Bob Vylan's actions at Glastonbury festival
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Bobby Vylan's anti-Israel tirade is another example of how too many in the West have no idea how good they have it
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Having witnessed an outburst of anti-Semitism at the weekend, I cannot escape the conclusion that this is what happens in a country where the threat of Islamist violence seems remote.
Where it’s possible to dance until dawn, safe in the knowledge that a barrage of rockets will not come raining down and waves of gunmen will not storm the site and brutalise anyone they can get their hands on.
I am, of course, referring to the horrors that were visited upon the 3,500 attendees of the Nova music festival in Israel on October 7, 2023.
But it’s equally applicable to Bob Vylan's anti-Israel tirade at Glastonbury on Saturday.
Glastonbury is a case study in how Islamist violence still doesn't seem real in the West - Adam Chapman
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Concluding their set on the West Holts Stage, the rap duo led festival-goers in chanting “death to the IDF”, with frontman Bobby Vylan repeating the rallying cry: “From the river to the sea Palestine must be, will be, free.”
The tens of thousands that had gathered to see Bob Vylan and their favourite pro-Palestine poster boys Kneecap, were loving it.
The sea of Gaza flags and the rapture that accompanied Vylan's full-throated call to violence were disturbing but not surprising.
It is yet another depressing example of how too many in the West have no idea how good they have it.
Leftist academics and their useful idiots can intellectualise the evils of the world from the safety of a beer-drenched field in Somerset because they have never lived in a constant state of war.
Bobby Vylan's anti-Israel tirade is another example of how those in the West have no idea how good they have it
PAThey do not viscerally understand what it feels like to be confronted with a death cult that is singularly focused on destroying them.
Those attending Nova - an open-air trance festival held in the Negev desert, 5km from Israel's border with Gaza - had this reality foisted on them two years ago.
Like the Glastonbury attendees, they sought transcendence through music — only they were met with rape and murder.
I interviewed one of the Nova survivors exactly one year on from the atrocities.
Kfir, 23, witnessed thousands of rockets streaking across the sky that morning, followed by Hamas terrorists descending on motorised paragliders.
He managed to flee the festival grounds when the shooting started, running through fields as bullets whizzed past him.
At the time of the interview, he was wracked with survivor's guilt. He was haunted by the memory of meeting an Israeli father and his 16-year-old disabled daughter, who were later slaughtered.
He could not comprehend the "pure hate" that was visited upon "people in the peak of their lives, who are celebrating only love and peace, and to do it without any possibility of fighting for themselves".
I would never speak on behalf of Kifr or any other survivor, but I'm willing to bet that they would trade places with these Glastonbury festivalgoers in a heartbeat.