London — The BBC has said it regrets not pulling down its live stream of a performance at the Glastonbury music festival over the weekend that included what the broadcaster calls “utterly unacceptable” chants against Israel’s military.
The taxpayer-funded BBC said in a statement Monday that it regrets not cutting short its live streaming signal after punk-rap duo Bob Vylan started leading a chant of “Death, death to the IDF,” during their Saturday performance, referring to the Israel Defense Forces.
“The BBC respects freedom of expression but stands firmly against incitement to violence,” the statement from the broadcaster said. “The antisemitic sentiments expressed by Bob Vylan were utterly unacceptable and have no place on our airwaves… The [BBC broadcasting] team were dealing with a live situation but with hindsight we should have pulled the stream during the performance. We regret this did not happen.”
The BBC, which is CBS News’ partner network in the U.K., quickly acknowledged that the language used on Saturday was “deeply offensive,” but the network was criticized — including by Prime Minister Keir Starmer and members of his cabinet —— for not reacting more quickly after the chant started.
Glastonbury festival’s organizers also condemned the chant in a statement, saying: “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.”
The reaction from the Trump administration appeared to be significantly harsher, with Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau saying in a social media post on Monday that U.S. entry visas already issued to Bob Vylan’s members had been revoked “in light of their hateful tirade at Glastonbury, including leading the crowd in death chants.”
The band’s website shows more than a dozen scheduled tour dates in the U.S., from coast to coast, starting in late October.
“Foreigners who glorify violence and hatred are not welcome visitors to our country,” Landau said in the post.
On Sunday, Bob Vylan posted a lengthy statement on their Instagram page, with the caption: “I said what I said.”
The duo, who use stage names and keep their identities anonymous, said their message was aimed at younger generations, whom they said should be shown how to fight for their own futures.
“Let us display to them loudly and visibly the right thing to do when we want and need change,” the band said. “Let them see us marching in the streets, campaigning on ground level, organizing online and shouting about it on any and every stage that we are offered.”
Local police have launched an investigation into the chants to determine whether any criminal offenses may have been committed.
Glastonbury is a five-day music festival that takes place on a farm in the southwest of England. It is one of the largest music festivals anywhere in the world, drawing more than 200,000 ticketholders, and it generally takes place every other year as the organizers give the farm fields time to recover from the impact of so many revelers. The event is hosted and organized by the Eavis family, who still own the farm, and has been running for about 55 years.
Bob Vylan’s performance preceded that of Northern Irish rappers Kneecap, whose set the BBC did not air live due to previous instances at the group’s concerts involving alleged comments supporting Hamas and Hezbollah and calling for the death of Conservative party lawmakers.
Kneecap’s members have insisted that they “do not, and have never, supported Hamas or Hezbollah.”
They sent “heartfelt apologies” to the families of two British lawmakers who were murdered in recent years after their remarks about Conservative parliamentarians.
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