KNEECAP walks back support of Palestine: loses friends but not enemies

A dangerous lesson

Irish hip-hop band Kneecap (stylized as KNEECAP) has been the victim of hasbara bullying since their appearance at the Coachella music festival in April 2025.

During their live set, they broadcast messages on screen reading “Fuck Israel. Free Palestine.”

Instantly, as has become expected, zionists such as Sharon Osborne or various British MPs — Kneecap being from Belfast, which is an occupied part of Ireland by Great Britain — have started a witch hunt against Kneecap, intending to bring them to court for the transgression of telling the truth about a genocide we all witness with our eyes every day.

Don’t get me wrong, Kneecap is one more victim in the long list of zionist harassment that seeks to silence all voices that are pro-Palestine. It’s not the first time they’ve taken a strong political stance both in their lyrics and opinions, but none of them has landed them in these kinds of problems.

(Kneecap live from 2024, with lots of references to Free Palestine.)

But recently, very likely to protect themselves, the group did something that earned them animosity. And this anomisity is not misplaced.

On April 29, the band posted a statement regarding their actions at Coachella on Twitter. The statement reads as follow (source):

KNEECAP STATEMENT:

They want you to believe words are more harmful than genocide.

Establishment figures, desperate to silence us, have combed through hundreds of hours of footage and interviews, extracting a handful of words from months or years ago to manufacture moral hysteria.

Let us be unequivocal: we do not, and have never, supported Hamas or Hezbollah. We condemn all attacks on civilians, always. It is never okay. We know this more than anyone, given our nation's history.

We also reject any suggestion that we would seek to incite violence against any MP or individual. Ever. An extract of footage, deliberately taken out of all context, is now being exploited and weaponised, as if it were a call to action.

This distortion is not only absurd - it is a transparent effort to derail the real conversation.

All two million Palestinian people in Gaza are currently being starved to death by Israel.

At least 20,000 children in Gaza have been killed. The British government continues to supply arms to Israel, even after scores of NHS doctors warned Keir Starmer in August that children were being systematically executed with sniper shots to the head.

Instead of defending innocent people or the principles of international law, the powerful in Britain have abetted slaughter and famine.

This is where real anger and outrage should be directed towards.

To the Amess and Cox families, we send our heartfelt apologies, we never intended to cause you hurt.

Kneecap’s message has always been — and remains — one of love, inclusion, and hope. This is why our music resonates across generations, countries, classes and cultures and has brought hundreds of thousands of people to our gigs.

No smear campaign will change that.

Suddenly, days after calling out the US administration at Coachella to applause and solidarity, there is an avalanche of outrage and condemnation by the political classes of Britain.

The real crimes are not in our performances; the real crimes are the silence and complicity of those in power. Shame on them.

In this statement, the band opens by reiterating that, quote, “we do not, and have never, supported Hamas or Hezbollah.”

Two things resulted from this statement. Let’s try to break it down.

On the one hand, the pro-Palestine voices that supported Kneecap up until then voiced some criticism — and to be clear, I don’t think this criticism was misplaced. Kneecap are certainly navigating a difficult moment, one in which they are scared of being sent to prison for their statements.

But herein lies the rub. This statement, clearly made to protect themselves from UK laws that consider Hamas and Hezbollah to be terrorist groups, did not stop zionists in their relentless slander of Kneecap. The target on their back has been painted, and zionists will not let it wash away easily. Kneecap is not in any better position now than they were after Coachella — and to be clear, they were absolutely right to say what they did at Coachella. It’s not even a question. But, what’s happening now is that they have lost support from previous allies, but did not gain anything in return. They have only isolated themselves a little more.

Under the post, a whole range of reactions can be read — almost none of them supportive of the statement as a whole.

Here are reactions from zionists of all sorts:

No amount of apologizing will be enough to stop zionists; this is our lesson from Kneecap’s difficult moment. There is nothing you can do for zionists to consider you nothing but an acceptable victim. I mean, we’re talking about people who relish killing toddlers and children here and would do it themselves if they could instead of vicariously living it through videos in their Telegram channels where they gleefully share and comment obscenities on pictures of Palestinian children.

Was the pro-Palestine side wrong to push back on Kneecap for this statement though? I wouldn’t say so. But of course, that’s just my point of view.

The anti-genocide side makes the sound argument that you cannot call for a Free Palestine (something Kneecap hasn’t walked back) while at the same time opposing the only thing preventing their genocide and allowing for this Free Palestine. The reactions are pretty united on that point (I’ve only included comments with a sizeable amount of likes):

This reply by theafroaussie below is particularly important to remember: armed resistance is recognized under international law (specifically U.N. Occupation Law), and it has been reiterated at various times that Palestinians are allowed to form militias to resist encroaching on their lands. This is not “supporting Hamas”, which is illegal in the UK and much of Europe, but simply stating a law that the UK, being part of the UN, ratified.