If Bob Vylan had taken to the stage at Glastonbury and shouted “kill the families of Iranian nuclear scientists” he would probably have been booed off the stage. But it is doubtful if there would have been any outcry from the establishment and calls for their arrest.
Interpreting the laws in hate crime is not that hard and, by any application of those laws, Bob Vylan ought to be occupying two prison cells and, preferably, one vacated by the unfortunate and very unfairly treated Lucy Connolly. However, compare the speed with which she found herself down the nick with the procrastination over Bob Vylan.
Perhaps that is commendable neutrality in the reporting but I’ve yet to hear Nick Robinson or any of the other BBC Radio 4 Today crew even ask if the deliberate targeting of non-combatants along, unavoidably, with their families is acceptable. Instead, we are treated to the ongoing saga of Bob Vylan and, of course, Kneecap and the technicalities around whether the live feed should have been pulled.
It wasn’t; that tells us everything we need to know. I have no idea if Bob Vylan – I had never even heard of them prior to this incident – had form in this regard. Kneecap most certainly did and they have played right into the hands of the establishment but doing exactly what they were expected to do. Bread and circuses for sure.
Opinions are divided amongst those you might expect to be most outraged. Toby Young of the Free Speech Union and Laurie Wastell of the Daily Sceptic believe that Kneecap and Bob Vylan should not be prosecuted while Laua Perrins, formerly of The Conservative Woman, believes they should, or at least could be, under existing law.
The procrastination allows the pro-Israeli establishment to froth and fume about the case, it fills inches of newspaper columns and it distracts from some of the crimes that are being committed elsewhere. Take Iran.
Without going ‘full UNN’ – I don’t support Hamas and, despite having a visiting professorship in Tehran, I’m prepared to believe that the Iranian regime doesn’t necessarily wish us all the best – what possible excuse could Israel have for ‘taking out’ Israeli nuclear scientists, in their home, and killing them along with their families?
The Geneva Conventions – to which Israel and Iran are signatories – may not be the most effective way of regulating modern warfare. But they are explicit about the protection of civilians and non-combatants. With the power of modern warheads, the protection of civilians is not always possible, even with the best of intentions.
But that is a long way from the deliberate targeting of non-combatants. And Iranian nuclear scientists, whatever nefarious activities they were purported to be engaged in, are (or were) non-combatants. Their deliberate targeting cannot be viewed as anything but a war crime, but the reports on the BBC – ironically accused so often of ant-Israeli bias – are matter-of-fact.
Meantime, in Gaza where yet another neighbourhood was destroyed this week, people continue to die. Killing the IDF won’t make the slightest difference, there will be plenty more where they came from. We – the UK and USA – need to stop providing the wherewithal to continue prosecuting the barbaric collective punishment that is being meted out to the Palestinians.
Roger Watson is a retired academic nurse who lives in the UK.
He is currently engaged in a range of professional consultancies in the UK, Europe and China. He writes regularly for several outlets including The Daily Sceptic, The European Conservative, Country Squire Magazine and The New Conservative.
