The British band Bob Vylan wished death on Israeli soldiers on stage. Now, one concert after another is being canceled.

Pascal Robinson-Foster, the lead singer of the British punk-rap duo Bob Vylan, has been making headlines for days with his anti-Israel chants. At the end of June, he chanted not only "Free Palestine" but also "Death to the IDF" on stage at the Glastonbury music festival. Thousands echoed the slogan, wishing death to the Israeli armed forces, some waving Palestinian flags. The British public broadcaster BBC livestreamed the event.

Chanting political slogans at the Glastonbury Festival is nothing new. The band considers itself left-wing and progressive. But with this performance, Robinson-Foster crossed a line. Police opened an investigation on suspicion of hate speech. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the slogan against the Israeli forces "appalling." Then the US State Department revoked the duo's entry visa for their autumn tour. The punk band's 26 concerts in the United States were canceled.

The band subsequently stated that they hadn't intended to call for the killing of Israelis with the slogan, but merely to criticize Israel's war in Gaza. This came too late. Meanwhile, concert promoters in Manchester, UK, and Gisors, France, canceled Bob Vylan's performances. The Cologne event center Live Music Hall announced on Instagram that Bob Vylan would not perform there on September 13. "We don't want to offer our stage to someone like that," a spokesperson told the "Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger."

Finally, on Thursday, video footage surfaced online showing Robinson-Foster chanting "Death to every single IDF soldier out there" at a concert in London's Alexandra Palace at the end of May. Now, London police are also investigating the singer.

Bob Vylan was originally announced as the opening act for the New York punk band Gogol Bordello. Gogol Bordello will perform eight times in Germany in September, including in Hamburg and Berlin. However, the website of promoter Trinity Music does not indicate which of the American band's concerts the British duo was scheduled to appear at as "support." Several advertisers simply mention a "special guest." A request from NZZ to Trinity Music regarding the German performances has so far remained unanswered.

"Artistic freedom ends where hatred and violence are propagated," Ottilie Klein, the cultural policy spokesperson for the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, told the NZZ. Indeed, the police may, for example, interrupt a concert if an artist commits a criminal offense. This includes condoning terrorist acts such as the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Slogans such as "From the river to the sea," which, according to security authorities, opponents of the Jewish state use to call for its annihilation, can also be punishable.

Klein also calls for authorities to consider imposing an entry ban on the band Bob Vylan. Volker Beck, president of the German-Israeli Society and former Green Party member of the Bundestag, had previously spoken out in favor of the measure.

A spokesperson for the German Interior Ministry told the NZZ that, according to the Schengen Border Code, entry at the border can be denied to foreigners who could endanger internal security or public order. However, they "generally do not comment on specific individual cases."

The example of right-wing extremist activist Martin Sellner from Austria illustrates how politically sensitive entry bans can be. The city of Potsdam had denied Sellner entry to Germany, arguing that he threatened public order. However, Sellner has no criminal record in either his home country or Germany. The Potsdam Administrative Court declared the decision unlawful because the city failed to provide plausible reasons as to why Sellner posed a threat.

The duo Bob Vylan has also not yet been convicted. The prospects of a travel ban against the band lasting long are therefore considered rather slim. The authorities in both Great Britain and Germany are also faced with the additional problem that anti-Israel bands are clever at circumventing restrictions.

This was also the case at the Glastonbury Festival: Shortly before Robinson-Foster launched into his anti-Israel slogans on stage, he prefaced the event with a brief statement. He said he spoke on behalf of all bands using their reach "for the Palestinian people." The BBC had previously decided not to broadcast a performance by the Irish rap trio Kneecap online.

The broadcaster feared that the Irish band, whose singer Mo Chara allegedly posed with a Hezbollah flag at a concert, might incite violence against Israel on stage. Instead, the duo Bob Vylan chanted the feared slogans, reaching hundreds of thousands of viewers online.

For the time being, the duo Bob Vylan is expected to lose considerable income after the US State Department banned them from entering the US. A possible ban on entry to Germany could also hurt them financially. However, the scandal is likely to have increased their popularity in the anti-Israel scene.