The Irish band Kneecap displayed a large anti-Israel message during its set Friday at Coachella, a music festival held in the California desert.
A series of messages projected behind the band accused Israel of genocide in Gaza and condemned the United States for its support for Israel’s military. The messages concluded with a small phrase on top of a larger one: “F–k Israel. Free Palestine.”
The progressive Twitch streamer Hasan Piker beamed the performance to his millions of followers, widening Kneecap’s reach beyond the estimated 125,000 people attending Coachella in person. Piker previously caused Democratic Rep. Richie Torres to call for Twitch to improve its handling of Israel-Hamas war content.
Kneecap’s display came a week after the band’s first Coachella performance, when its protest against Israel was cut from the official livestream. The band had vowed to repeat its protest and collaborated with Piker to evade editing by the festival.
Mo Chara, one of the hip-hop trio’s members, told concert-goers that what Palestinians are facing is far worse than anything Ireland endured during its persecution by the British. Ireland is staunchly pro-Palestinian in part because of what many Irish see as a shared history of oppression.
“The Palestinians have nowhere to go,” Chara said. “It’s their f–king home. And they’re bombing them from the skies. If you’re not calling it a genocide what the f–k are you calling it?”
He then led the crowd in chanting, “Free Palestine.”
Kneecap has made anti-Israel advocacy a central component of its performances and social media presence. The band was among 80 groups to pull out of South by Southwest in 2024 to protest the festival’s ties to the Israeli military and last month led a “Free Palestine” chant during a performance in Melbourne, Australia. In February, the band posted a picture of a member reading the collected speeches of Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader whom Israel assassinated in September.
Kneecap’s demonstration was far more prominent than another pro-Palestinian protest during the festival. Last week the band Green Day, which is known for its political progressivism, replaced a line from the song “Jesus in Suburbia” with the words “Running away from pain like the kids from Palestine.” The tweaked lyric elicited criticism from some pro-Israel voices, including the heavy metal musician David Draiman from Disturbed, who tweeted an invitation to lead singer Billy Joe Armstrong.
“You know I respect you brother,” Draiman wrote. “I’d love to have the opportunity for you to hear the Israeli/Jewish side of this horrific war. I’m available to discuss whenever you are.”
In the wake of Kneecap’s Coachella performance, Draiman offered a harsher take, retweeting messages condemning the band’s comments and supporters. One meme, by the pro-Israel influencer Zach Sage Fox, used the styling of the Coachella display to render a different message calling “Free Palestine” a scam. “I doubt you’d be applauding like sheep if this were the Nova music festival and you were being slaughtered like sheep,” the message concluded.
It was a reference to the festival where 364 people were murdered during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel — and not the first likening Coachella to Nova. “Imagine going to a music festival and not coming home,” the pro-Israel advocacy group Jewbelong said on bright-pink billboard it put up along the California highway leading to the Coachella site.
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