The Electronic Intifada 17 May 2025
Demonstrators in London on 1 May, 2025, show support for Irish rappers, Kneecap.
ZUMAPRESSBriseann an dúchas trí shúile an chait.
The old Irish saying about cats (Lit: “Heredity breaks out in the eyes of a cat”) tells us that basic nature will eventually come to the fore.
As we witness the British establishment’s response to the controversy created around Irish rap trio Kneecap’s outspoken Palestine solidarity, this appears patently borne out.
Hailing from Belfast and Derry, Kneecap is known for its provocative music and its pro-Irish republican and socially conscious content.
The band places a strong emphasis on their native Irish language, rapping in a mixture of Irish and English.
A recent fictionalized Irish-language biopic they made won a British Academy of Film and Television Award (BAFTA) and was shortlisted for two Academy Awards in early 2025, though nominated in neither.
In April, while performing at the annual Coachella music and arts festival in California, Kneecap took aim at the genocide in Gaza. At the end of their performance, the band flashed up three messages on the screen behind them.
“Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people,” read the first, followed by, “it is being enabled by the US government who arm and fund Israel despite their war crimes.”
The final message read “Fuck Israel. Free Palestine.”
The unspeakable
Immediately, the band became the focus of international attention.
Lauded by many for speaking out against the slaughter in Gaza and the complicity of western governments, the band had also touched the third rail of pro-Zionist establishment sensibilities.
And suddenly, in the wake of their performance, footage from two past concerts emerged. One, from 2024, appeared to show a band member shouting, “Up Hamas, up Hizballah.”
In the second clip, from November 2023, a band member seemingly tells the audience, “The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP.”
Consequently, Kneecap now finds itself the focus of an investigation by the UK’s Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command.
Meanwhile, political leaders have called for the band to be banned from events like the Glastonbury Festival and TRNSMT in Glasgow, Scotland.
Kneecap had done the unspeakable: They had shone a spotlight on the genocide being perpetrated on the people of Gaza, they had highlighted the criminality and savagery of the Israeli apartheid regime, and they had exposed the complicity of Western governments.
Of course, the response of the UK authorities is no surprise. But it once again exposed the mendacity, hypocrisy and barbarity that has long permeated the British establishment to its very core; its cat nature, if you like.
Crackdown
Since 7 October 2023, there has been an intensification of a crackdown on Palestinian voices that has moved seamlessly from Conservative Party to Labour Party administrations.
In January of this year, Palestine Solidarity Campaign leader in the UK, Ben Jamal was quite blunt: “The state wishes to silence our movement,” he said in a statement after being interviewed by British police over alleged incitement.
One of the most high-profile incidents took place during the March for Palestine in London on 18 January, when “heavy-handed and aggressive policing” culminated in 77 arrests on the day.
Journalists have also been targeted under anti-terror laws. In August 2024, Richard Medhurst and Sarah Wilkinson were arrested, and in October 2024, The Electronic Intifada’s own Asa Winstanley had his home raided and devices seized.
Meanwhile, numerous anti-Zionist activists have been arrested and charged under anti-terrorism laws, with some being detained in prison while awaiting trial. Furthermore, it has emerged that the UK government colluded with the Israeli embassy in relation to the “Filton 18” Palestine Action activists who were arrested and imprisoned for a raid on Israeli weapons company Elbit Systems in Bristol in August 2024.
And in late March, more than 20 police officers, some armed with tasers, smashed down the doors of the Quaker Meeting House in Covent Garden in Central London to arrest six young activists attending a meeting of Youth Demand, a youth resistance group campaigning to end the genocide in Gaza.
One would have to be rather naive to believe that the increasing crackdown could take place without approval from the Labour government. In particular, one can have little doubt that actions such as those taken on 18 January, which also led to parliamentarians Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell being interviewed by police, were taken without the acquiescence of the Home Secretary, the UK’s answer to an interior minister.
In the crosshairs
In the aftermath of Coachella, Kneecap is now in the crosshairs of the UK authorities, who are seeking to use the newly emerged video clips in their efforts to punish the band and deflect attention away from the real issue, the genocide in Gaza.
In a statement released by Kneecap, they rightly identified the recent criticism as “a transparent effort to derail the conversation” away from Gaza.
Apologizing for the comments regarding the killing of political figures, the statement also went on to say, “we do not, and have never, supported Hamas or Hizballah. We condemn all attacks on civilians, always.”
Hamas and Hizballah are proscribed in the UK, something Kneecap was undoubtedly mindful of when writing the statement. However, the framing of the statement, whereby attacks on civilians appears to be conflated with support for Hamas or Hizballah was unfortunate. Both groups are political movements, intrinsic to the governance and civic life of their people and both play leading roles in resisting occupation of their lands, a right enshrined in international law.
And Kneecap seemed more focused on the issue at hand, Western governments’ complicity with the genocide in Gaza.
“The real crimes are not in our performances,” the statement concluded. “[T]he real crimes are the silence and complicity of those in power. Shame on them.”
The arts communities in the UK and Ireland have rallied to the defense of the Irish band, calling the targeting of Kneecap “political repression” and an assault on the freedom of expression.
And the record would suggest they are right.
Back in 2024, the Conservative Party’s largest donor Frank Hester had to apologize after saying that looking at Labour MP Diane Abbott “makes you want to hate all black women” and that “she should be shot.”
He was staunchly defended by present Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch, then in government as business secretary, who dismissed his comments as “trivia.”
Last month, the same Kemi Badenoch called for Kneecap to be prosecuted.
Similarly, in June 2016, Mail on Sunday columnist Dan Hodges wrote an article under the heading “Labour must kill vampire Jezza,” in reference to then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Yet, in stark contrast to the furor surrounding Kneecap, Hodges did not find himself the subject of police inquiries or investigations.
Most disquieting of all was a video from 2019 showing members of the British military on a military firing range using a photo of Corbyn as a target. All four soldiers in the video were allowed to remain as serving soldiers.
Not deterred
In none of the cases was there any media controversy to compare with the pearl-clutching that has surrounded Kneecap.
But then, Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, as leader of the Labour Party in opposition, declared in the aftermath of 7 October that Israel had the “right to defend itself,” even if that meant committing war crimes such as cutting off water and power.
That position was reiterated by then shadow attorney-general Emily Thornberry, now chair of the British parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.
In other words, British politicians, from the most senior on down, can openly speak of support for war crimes, of support for starving an entire population in an act of sadistic collective punishment, yet they fall into a frenzy when a young rap band draws attention to Israel’s savagery in Gaza.
It remains to be seen what will come of the investigation into Kneecap’s comments. But what is certain is that it will not deter the band from speaking out in opposition to genocide.
And neither will labeling anyone who rejects ethnic cleansing and genocide a “terrorist” succeed in distracting, cowering or silencing the mass of humanity who are perfectly capable of understanding when a genocide is being livestreamed into their tablets, phones or, sometimes, TV screens.
“A terrorist is someone that has a bomb but doesn’t have an air force,” wrote American author William Blum in Rogue State.
The terrorists are not the truth tellers who expose the atrocities of the Israeli apartheid regime and its western benefactors.
They are not the millions who have taken to the streets across the planet to show their solidarity with the men, women and children of Palestine.
And they are not three young rap artists from Ireland.
Roddy Keenan is a journalist and author based in the UK.
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