Diarmuid Breatnach
(Reading time main text: 3 mins.)
The media and some British politicians have been in a furore about what a performer of one of the acts at the Glastonbury Festival1 called from the stage and got most of the audience to chant with him: Death, death to the IDF!2
The performer was not, for change, one of the Kneecap trio (who also performed at Glastonbury) despite British politician complaints after another anti-Zionist “controversy” (i.e. unlike daily Zionist genocide of Palestinians, supplied by UK weapons, which is not at all controversial).
The latest performer to raise the genocide-proof ire of British politicians and mass media commentators was a member of the Bob Vylan group and the call which caused such anger in pro-Zionist circles was uttered from the West Holts stage during the Festival on Saturday.
This call was not only denounced by right wing conservative and social-democratic figures such as the UK’s Prime Minister, Keith Starmer, who dubbed it ‘hate speech’ but also went too far for the liberal Glastonbury Festival management who issued a statement declaring it “appalling”.3
To call for the ‘death’ of an organisation or a power is to call for it to cease to exist, to end. So what is the IDF? Well, the acronym stands for Israeli Defence Force, often and more realistically referred to as the IOF, i.e. the Israeli Occupation Force.
Now this organisation is the military wing of the Zionist European settler colony which is ‘Israel’, and with a history of attacks on the indigenous Palestinians, in addition to the people of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and, the week before last, Iran.4
APPALLING OR MODERATE AND REASONABLE?
On that basis alone, surely it would be moderate and reasonable to call for such a military organisation to cease to exist, i.e. to call for its death?
But there’s more – a lot more! The IOF has since 9th October 2023 been enforcing a water and starvation blockade on Gaza, also depriving it of importation of medicines.5 The IOF ground and air forces have destroyed at least in part but mostly completely every hospital and medical facility in Gaza.6
In addition to starving the population of Gaza by military blockade, the IOF has, with the direct assistance of the USA, set up the “killing fields” in which hungry Palestinian people are sniped, machine-gunned and shelled as they queue for meagre GHF food parcels.7
The IOF has assassinated or caused the death of at least 54,607 Palestinians and wounded 125,341 between 7 October 2023 and 4 June this year,8 including hundreds of first responders and civil defence workers,9 over 230 journalists10 and many police and security workers.11
This same organisation is the one primarily responsible for the mass demolition in Gaza of Palestinian residential buildings and the displacement of 1.9 million people,12 along with destruction of water and sewage infrastructure, desalination plants, water tanks and agriculture.
The evidence of daily genocide by the IOF is incontrovertible and even the weak and hesitant International Court of Justice in the Hague stated that there was a plausible case to answer.13 The court also ordered the arrest of some leading government ministers who control the IOF.14
UNCONTROVERSIAL, A DUTY
To call for the death of an army of genocide is surely not only not controversial but is instead correct, a duty, one which all reasonable institutions and individuals should emulate.
According to the Genocide Convention of 1948, all signatory states have a duty to act to prevent genocide,15 not only not to collude with it. Bob Vylan is to be commended for their call and those who condemn them should, at the very least, face widespread opprobrium.
Bob Vylan’s call is absolutely correct and humanity awaits its implementation, not only death to the IOF but also to the regime and colonial state that gave rise to and which program it follows. Let us join our voices to the humanitarian call and expand upon it.16
Death to the IOF — and to the Zionist settler colony that spawned it!
End.
Sources:
1The Glastonbury music festival is an annual event of a liberal alternative ambience.
2https://www.rte.ie/news/2025/0629/1520889-kneecap-glastonbury/
3Ibid.
4https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Israel
5https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip_(2023%E2%80%93present)
6https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/uk-s-channel-4-to-air-gaza-medics-documentary-rejected-by-bb
7https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-06-27/ty-article-magazine/.premium/idf-soldiers-ordered-to-shoot-deliberately-at-unarmed-gazans-waiting-for-humanitarian-aid/00000197-ad8e-de01-a39f-ffbe33780000 and https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/charities-call-for-end-to-israeli-backed-aid-group-as-dozens-more-die-in-gaza-1779018.html
8Gaza health Ministry figures, quoted in https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0r1xl5wgnko (which incorrectly quotes the Israeli figures on Israelis killed by Hamas on October 7th despite a number of Israeli sources indicating that an unknown number of those were killed by the IOF in implementation of the “Hannibal Doctrine”.
9https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/over-1-500-humanitarian-workers-killed-since-start-of-israel-s-war-on-gaza-media-office/3524966
10More since this published https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/4/2/gaza-war-deadliest-ever-for-journalists-says-report https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/4/2/gaza-war-deadliest-ever-for-journalists-says-report
11In particular to facilitate food looters under IOF protection https://www.nbcnews.com/world/middle-east/israeli-strike-kills-18-palestinians-central-gaza-turmoil-mounts-food-rcna215479
12About 90% of the population, some of them many times https://www.unrwa.org/resources/reports/unrwa-situation-report-177-situation-gaza-strip-and-west-bank-including-east-jerusalem
13https://www.npr.org/2024/01/27/1227397107/icj-finds-genocide-case-against-israel-plausible-orders-it-to-stop-violations
14Prime Minister Netanyahu and (then) Minister of ‘Defence’ Gallant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court_arrest_warrants_for_Israeli_leaders
15See States’ Obligations in https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/Genocide%20Convention-FactSheet-ENG.pdf
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