(April 20, 2025 / JNS) The 2025 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Southern California became a platform for anti-Israel messaging over the weekend, as multiple performers used their sets to launch attacks against the Jewish state and U.S. support for Israel.

Irish hip-hop group Kneecap sparked outrage by projecting slogans such as “F*** Israel, Free Palestine” and accusing Israel of committing genocide—an accusation that Israeli officials and international legal experts have consistently rejected as unfounded and inflammatory.

The group also targeted American foreign policy, claiming the U.S. “arms and funds Israel despite their war crimes.” During their performance, front man Mo Chara likened Ireland’s colonial history to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “Palestinians have nowhere to go. This is their f***ing home, and they’re being bombed from the sky,” he said.

Kneecap later claimed that Coachella organizers censored its anti-Israel visuals from the festival’s livestream. The allegation has not been independently verified.

American punk band Green Day added to the controversy when lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong altered the lyrics of the song “Jesus of Suburbia” to reference “the kids from Palestine.” The lyric made no mention of the ongoing rocket fire and hostage abductions, or the role of Hamas and other terrorist organizations that openly seek Israel’s destruction.

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