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Jewish leaders in the United Kingdom expressed outrage this weekend over antisemitic chants led by artists at a flagship music festival that was broadcast live on British public television, but the community has long been warning of an alarming rise in hate crimes since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
Even before Saturday’s performance by British rap-pop duo Bob Vylan — in which the singer chanted “Death, death to the IDF [Israel Defense Forces]” — Jews in Britain have said they no longer feel welcome, citing government inaction in addressing antisemitism.
“Bob Vylan’s chant didn’t come from an empty space,” David Collier, an independent investigative journalist, told Fox News Digital.
UK PUNK-RAP DUO SPARKS OUTRAGE WITH ANTI-ISRAEL CHANTS AT MAJOR MUSIC FESTIVAL
Antisemitic hate on display at an anti-Israel protest in London. Antisemitism in the U.K. is hitting record levels since the Hamas terror attacks on Oct. 7, 2023. (Campaign Against Antisemitism on X)
Collier, who monitors “antisemitism inside anti-Zionist activity,” said that “Vylan is so lost that he truly believed he was speaking up for humanity when he called for the death of 100,000s of young Israelis… the crowd who chanted along with him saw nothing wrong in echoing his call for genocide. No witnessing crew member backstage saw fit to pull the plug on the lights or sound, and the BBC never stopped its live coverage.”
“The end product was a team effort that shows just how blind mainstream U.K. has become to a genocidal antisemitic ideology,” he added.
According to the Community Security Trust, which records antisemitic incidents across Great Britain, attacks against Jews have surged, with some 3,528 incidents reported in 2024 and 4,296 in 2023 – the highest ever.
Hundreds attend a protest called by the National Jewish Assembly, The Campaign Against Antisemitsim and the U.K. Lawyers for Israel at the BBC Broadcasting House on Oct. 16, 2023 in London. The National Jewish Assembly is protesting at the BBC’s refusal to label Hamas terrorists and comes after the militant group’s recent attacks on Israel. Hamas was prescribed as a terrorist organization by the U.K. in March 2021. (Photo by Guy Smallman/Getty Images)
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A survey of British Jewry published by the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAM) in January 2025, showed that only one third (34%) believe the community has a long-term future in the U.K., and up to half said they had considered leaving Britain in the past two years due to antisemitism.
The poll also found that less than half of British Jews (43%) feel welcome in the U.K., with the majority saying they needed to hide their Judaism due to antisemitism. Less than one-tenth said they believe the authorities were doing enough to address and punish antisemitism.
Additionally, 92% said they view the media’s bias against Israel as fueling the persecution of Jews in Britain. The BBC, respondents said, was the worst in terms of its coverage of matters of Jewish interest.
Anti-Israel protesters hold a banner saying “From the river to the sea,” in London on Dec. 9, 2023. (Andy Soloman/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
“It has been clear for a while that antisemitism has been normalized in the U.K. But the fact that it is now broadcast openly and plainly on the BBC with minimal outcry shows how bad the situation has become,” CAM CEO Sacha Roytman told Fox News Digital.
“Incitement to violence should be a red line which forces the British government and the BBC to take all measures possible against these artists and make sure they do not have such a platform to spew their hate and violence ever again,” he said.
Britain’s center-left Prime Minister Keir Starmer belatedly condemned Vylan’s performance, saying in a statement, “There is no excuse for this kind of appalling hate speech” and calling on the BBC “to explain how these scenes came to be broadcast,” according to media reports.
Danny Cohen, a former BBC director, wrote in the Daily Telegraph on Sunday that the BBC was violating its own guidelines on hate speech and called on the government to take more action.
Bob Vylan crowdsurfs in front of the West Holts stage during day four of Glastonbury Festival 2025 at Worthy Farm, Pilton on June 28, 2025 in Glastonbury, England. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)
“The BBC has repeatedly shown itself unable to get its own house in order on antisemitism,” he wrote, citing, “consistent Jew-hate and bias from reporters on BBC Arabic” and a recent “debacle” surrounding a tainted documentary about Gaza.
British Jewry’s umbrella organization, the Board of Deputies, said in a statement that it would “continue to seek answers from the BBC about how that hateful content was allowed to be broadcast and to ensure there can be no repetition of this in the future.”
It also condemned Glastonbury Festival, saying “its professed commitment to ‘peace, unity, respect and hope’ rings hollow when its stage is used to promote chants calling for death.”
“What happened at Glastonbury is a symptom of a sickness in British society,” said Nicole Lampert, a U.K.-based journalist and activist against antisemitism. “For me, and I say this with great sadness as a Brit and also as someone who spent many years as an entertainment journalist, this starts with the BBC.”
A boy, wearing a kippah, holds the British flag at a march against antisemitism after an increase in the U.K., during a temporary truce between the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and Israel, in London on Nov. 26, 2023. (REUTERS/Susannah Ireland)
Lampert said the BBC, which Britons pay for via their taxes, offers “very little nuance in the reporting” of the conflicts in the Middle East.
“There are meant to be rules in place which means that the BBC and its journalists are strictly neutral, but social media has shown that to be a lie,” she said, adding “every day on every Jewish group I’m on, someone is saying ‘I can’t stay here.’”
In a post on X, Israeli Minister for Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli urged British Jews to “leave the country.”
“The BBC has a long history of severe bias against Israel, but today a dark line was crossed by broadcasting calls for the murder of IDF soldiers,” he wrote, adding that “when such incitement is normalized, those who fail to act, those who do nothing to stop it, bear responsibility for the blood of Jews and Israelis living in Britain.”
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Like the prime minister, the BBC belatedly released a statement saying it “should have pulled” the livestream of the performance and that Vylan’s performance contained “utterly unacceptable” and “antisemitic sentiments.”
“Millions of people tuned in to enjoy Glastonbury this weekend across the BBC’s output, but one performance within our live streams included comments that were deeply offensive,” the BBC said.
The British government did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital questions.
