In case you missed it, some rapper called Bobby Vylan lead crowds in chants of “Death, death to the IDF” at the Glastonbury music festival on Saturday:
Lucy Connolly is in prison for a tweet calling for deportations — Meanwhile, Bob Vylan chants for the death of Israelis on BBC’s world stage… and walks free.
— Avi Yemini (@OzraeliAvi) June 29, 2025
One gets 31 months. The other gets airtime.
Make it make sense.
pic.twitter.com/2UEXPXRwGb
What’s more, this was broadcast live on the BBC.
A lot has been said about it, but I wanted to bring up a perhaps more obscure, relevant, point.
The name Bob Vylan is his stage name, and was reportedly meant to invoke Bob Dylan. You know, the same proud Jew whose song Neighborhood Bully is exactly on point:
Well, the neighborhood bully, he’s just one man
His enemies say he’s on their land
They got him outnumbered about a million to one
He got no place to escape to, no place to run
He’s the neighborhood bully.The neighborhood bully he just lives to survive
He’s criticized and condemned for being alive
He’s not supposed to fight back, he’s supposed to have thick skin
He’s supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in
He’s the neighborhood bully.The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land
He’s wandered the earth an exiled man
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn
He’s always on trial for just being born
He’s the neighborhood bully.Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad
The bombs were meant for him. He was supposed to feel bad
He’s the neighborhood bully.Well, the chances are against it, and the odds are slim
That he’ll live by the rules that the world makes for him
‘Cause there’s a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac
He’s the neighborhood bully.Well, he got no allies to really speak of
What he gets he must pay for, he don’t get it out of love
He buys obsolete weapons and he won’t be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side
He’s the neighborhood bully.Well, he’s surrounded by pacifists who all want peace
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease
Now, they wouldn’t hurt a fly. To hurt one they would weep
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep
He’s the neighborhood bully.
Every empire that’s enslaved him is gone
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon
He’s made a garden of paradise in the desert sand
In bed with nobody, under no one’s command
He’s the neighborhood bully.Now his holiest books have been trampled upon
No contract that he signed was worth that what it was written on
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth
Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health
He’s the neighborhood bully.What’s anybody indebted to him for?
Nothing, they say. He just likes to cause war
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed
They wait for this bully like a dog waits for feed
He’s the neighborhood bully.What has he done to wear so many scars?
Does he change the course of rivers? Does he pollute the moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill
Running out the clock, time standing still
Neighborhood bully.
Of course, this joker is certainly no Bob Dylan in terms of talent, or anything really.
I guess the only universe this could be considered music or any good
Let’s give this Bob Vylan lot a listen then pic.twitter.com/7wqrvZBpyK
— Lucy Brown (@lucymarionbrown) June 29, 2025
is the same universe in which a crowd of people can chant along with him for the deaths of an army protecting civilians from other massacres perpetrated against fellow music goers in October 2023.
