The United States has revoked visas for members of Britain’s Bob Vylan punk-rap duo after they led chants during their set at the Glastonbury music festival in England over the weekend that the State Department and the BBC, who broadcast the event, said were antisemitic.
“The @StateDept has revoked the US visas for the members of the Bob Vylan band in light of their hateful tirade at Glastonbury, including leading the crowd in death chants. Foreigners who glorify violence and hatred are not welcome visitors to our country,” U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said in a post on X on Monday.
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On Monday, the BBC said it regretted not stopping its livestream of Saturday’s event, and police said they had launched a criminal investigation. Bob Vylan’s set included on-stage chants of ‘death, death to the IDF’, a reference to the Israel Defense Forces fighting a war in Gaza, and ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine must be, will be, inshallah, it will be free’. That phrase is often taken in Israel as a call for Israel’s destruction and denial of its right to exist, although many Palestinians dispute that characterisation.
