The BBC and Glastonbury crossed a line that cannot be repeated
As a music lover, I have always cherished the BBCs coverage of the Glastonbury Festival. To be able to relax and watch an eclectic mix of artists perform is a staple part of the British summer.
Listen to this article
However, this year, something went horribly wrong.
In the lead up, festival organisers ignored not just the Jewish communities’ concerns but those from the Prime Minister and several Parliamentarians that they were effectively platforming extremists.
This played out to our horror, live on the BBC.
An artist who few people had previously heard of became instantaneously notorious for all the wrong reasons.
After engaging in an openly expletive laden antisemitic rant about his “Zionist” manager, he then led the crowd in a rendition of “Death to the IDF” and “From the River to the Sea”.
The overwhelming majority of Jewish people would consider this as inciting violence against Jewish people and the State of Israel.
Whilst the organisers have rightly been criticised, it is the BBC who have again been exposed for having a blind spot at identifying contemporary antisemitism.
We have been informed that there is a 30 second delay as a safeguard against ensuring racism or obscene views are not transmitted.
However, their team did not see fit to pull the plug. You can imagine how quickly they would have acted if an artist had chanted death to any other group.
Over the last 20 months, we have bemoaned the lack of solidarity from many quarters. In addition, we have seen those who champion artistic freedom be completely silent when Jewish or Israeli performers are cancelled.
However, in this instance, the offence is so egregious that we have had almost universal support and condemnation from across the political and cultural worlds.
We need to ensure that people who hold extremist views are not allowed the opportunity to incite hatred against people from our cultural venues. We therefore call on all venues to immediately cancel those who are happy to promote those espousing racist views.
It is right that the venue have now refused to host this individual as we cannot allow a situation where it becomes normalised for people to be emboldened to spread hate to thousands of people in our cultural spaces.
________________
Marc Levy, Chief Executive of the Jewish Representative Council of Greater Manchester
LBC Opinion provides a platform for diverse opinions on current affairs and matters of public interest.
The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official LBC position.
To contact us email opinion@lbc.co.uk