Why are Kneecap facing consequences when Israel is not?

Irish Times

26-05-2025

What happens next in
Gaza
– and members of the Israeli government are laying out their plans in full view, clearly encouraged by the lack of consequences for war crimes to date – will continue to define the trajectory of our world. It already has.
The longer
Israel's
destruction of Gaza and the Palestinian people continues, and the longer those with the power to stop it do nothing effective, the more heightened actions of protest will become and the more trust in those obliged to stop this destruction will collapse. This trajectory seems inevitable.
It is the hypocrisy that drives people stone mad.
Identifying the hypocrisies and gaslighting inherent in the response to Israel's actions in Gaza is not necessarily whataboutery, but it is a signal of the kind of double standards that warp truth and clarity.
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Some of these examples may feel like small beans when held up against the mass slaughter in Gaza. If
Russia
was booted out of the
Eurovision Song Contest
, then why wasn't Israel? As it happens, the European Broadcasting Union is now reviewing the event's voting system due to the curiously high level of public voting for Israel's song in the competition.
In the
United States
, for another example, the same voices who were cheerleaders for 'free speech' on university campuses when it came to right-wing provocateurs now advocate for the suppression of protest when it comes to Palestinian solidarity.
What this demonstrates is that 'free speech' was clearly never a value, but an empty phrase that is an example of the ultimate hypocrisy as it is leveraged for the opposite of its meaning.
Some hypocrisies are about who is reprimanded by the law and who isn't. If a member of the Belfast hip hop group
Kneecap
can be
charged with committing a terrorist offence for allegedly displaying a flag
the group says was thrown on stage during a concert, then will something also happen about allegations of much more serious crimes also happening in Israel's war on
Palestine
?
Last month, British human rights lawyers filed a 240-page war crimes complaint with the Metropolitan Police's war crimes unit. It concerned 10 British citizens serving in the
Israel Defense Forces
(IDF).
The Guardian reported that the dossier included allegations about 10 suspects targeting and killing citizens by sniper fire, indiscriminately attacking civilian areas and hospitals, attacking historic and religious sites, and the forced transfer and displacement of civilians. 'Scores of legal and human rights experts have signed a letter of support urging the war crimes team to investigate the complaints,' the Guardian report stated.
Why Kneecap with a flag, and not others with a gun? Of course, it's not a binary choice. The application of the law is not one of finite gestures. No one is demanding the jettisoning of policing of less serious allegations of crimes in the pursuit of larger ones. Investigating those alleged to have committed 'core international crimes' is complex and would take time.
But why Kneecap, and why now? Is it anything to do with the manufactured uproar around their Coachella performance? And what happens when larger crimes – war crimes – are not met with any consequences at all?
The arm of the law delivers a message, both in its action and stasis. The public subsumes that message. As people identify hypocrisies, and perceive distorted priorities, their cynicism grows and their trust in institutions erodes.
Kneecap said in a statement: 'The IDF units they [the British state] arm and fly spy plane missions for are the real terrorists, the whole world can see it.' Whatever you think about Kneecap – what they did or didn't do or say – they are raising legitimate questions of proportionality here. Part of the power of artists is their capacity to offer perspective in real time. The political sphere operates on a lag – this is why culture moves politics, and not the other way around.
The lack of a concerted international effort to stop what Israel is doing in Gaza has frustrated those protesting and advocating for peace and freedom who are quietly screaming: catch up, do something.
These metaphorical screams can become real actions that sometimes cross lines. The
murder of two people working for the Israeli embassy in Washington DC last week
was a horrific event that could not have been predicted. Yet it is not a surprise to see violence erupt. It is never justified, and it is wrong. But there is a degree to which there is a terrible inevitability about it.
When protest is policed, but the legitimate reasons for the protests are not; when outspoken artists are charged and soldiers participating in what has been characterised by so many as genocide are not; when governments and global institutions speak of international law and values, but do not uphold them, then anger, frustration, despair, pessimism take hold. So, too, do feelings of helplessness, of a lack of agency, fear of reprisals for protest and ultimately a lack of trust in governments, media and global institutions.
Poet June Jordan was right when she described what people were prepared to do for the Palestinian people as a litmus test for morality.