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LONDON — Rap-punk duo Bob Vylan on Tuesday rejected claims of antisemitism over onstage feedback on the Glastonbury Festival that triggered a police investigation and sparked criticism from politicians, the BBC and festival organizers.

The band talked about in an announcement that it used to be being “targeted for speaking up” in regards to the conflict in Gaza.

Police are investigating whether or no longer against the law used to be committed when frontman Bob Vylan led the viewers in chants of “Death to the IDF” — the Israel Defense Forces — all the blueprint in which in the course of the band’s situation on the festival in southwest England on Saturday.

The British authorities referred to as the chants “appalling hate speech” and the BBC talked about it regretted livestreaming the “antisemitic sentiments.” U.S. authorities revoked the musicians’ visas.

Israel’s conflict against Hamas in Gaza has infected tensions around the sphere, triggering pro-Palestinian protests in many capitals and on college campuses. Israel and a few supporters obtain described the protests as antisemitic, while critics bellow Israel makes use of such descriptions to silence opponents.

In an announcement on Instagram, Bob Vylan talked about: “We are not for the death of jews, arabs or any other race or group of people. We are for the dismantling of a violent military machine. … A machine that has destroyed much of Gaza.”

Alleging that “we are a distraction from the story,” the duo added: “We are being targeted for speaking up.”

The BBC is below stress to fee why it did no longer lower the feed of the efficiency after the anti-IDF chants. Britain’s Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis talked about “the airing of vile Jew-hatred” by the BBC used to be a second of “national shame.”

“It should trouble all decent people that now, one need only couch their outright incitement to violence and hatred as edgy political commentary, for ordinary people to not only fail to see it for what it is, but also to cheer it, chant it and celebrate it,” he wrote on X.

Avon and Somerset Police talked about it’s a ways investigating Bob Vylan’s efficiency, along with that by Irish-language hip-hop trio Kneecap, whose pro-Palestinian stance has furthermore attracted controversy. Kneecap member Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh has been charged below Britain’s Terrorism Act with supporting a proscribed organization for allegedly waving a Hezbollah flag at a stay efficiency in London final year.

For the reason that conflict started in October 2023 with a Hamas assault on Israel that killed some 1,200 other folks, Israel has killed extra than 56,000 other folks in Gaza, per the health ministry within the Hamas-traipse territory.