Irish band Kneecap projects ‘F*ck Israel’ on Coachella music festival stage
Group accuses US government of enabling Israel to commit ‘genocide’ in Gaza Strip, makes good on promise to repeat remarks that were cut from livestream a week earlier
Irish band Kneecap projected anti-Israel messages above the stage on Saturday as it performed at the Coachella music festival in California, including accusations of genocide.
The band had delivered similar remarks in a performance last week that were apparently cut from the festival’s livestream of the event.
When Kneecap took to the stage at one of the world’s best-known music festivals, a large screen displayed “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people.”
“It is being enabled by the US who arm and fund Israel despite their war crimes,” the message continued. “Fuck Israel, Free Palestine.”
“The Palestinians have nowhere to go,” band member Mo Chara told the crowd. “It’s their fucking home. And they’re bombing them from the skies. If you’re not calling it a genocide what the fuck are you calling it?”
He went on to lead the crowd in chants of “Free Palestine.”
Some uncensored messaging to Coachella ???????????? pic.twitter.com/WbHZBrCZl5
— KNEECAP (@KNEECAPCEOL) April 19, 2025
Leftist social media influencer Hasan Piker joined the performers onstage as they delivered the messages, live-streaming the moment on his own Twitch channel, where he has some 2.7 million followers in addition to over a million more on other social media platforms.
The onstage display was broadcast live on various internet feeds, Channel 12 reported, though it was not clear if the festival’s official broadcast carried it.
Last weekend Kneecap delivered its initial performance at the festival, using its time onstage to heap scorn on the late British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, and leading the crowd in chanting “Maggie’s in a box.”
At the time, the band also made remarks about a “genocide” in Gaza. However, the livestream of the remarks on both topics was cut, the NME reported.
“Not the only thing that was cut – our messaging on the US-backed genocide in Gaza somehow never appeared on screens either,” the band later posted to X. Israel strongly refutes all accusations of genocide.
“Back next Friday Coachella and it’ll be sorted,” they added along with a Palestinian flag.
The following day, US rock band Green Day used its performance at the California festival to apparently criticize Israel, changing the lyrics of one of its songs to make a reference about children in the Gaza Strip.
In the song “Jesus of Suburbia,” lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong sang “Running away from pain like the kids from Palestine,” instead of the original “Runnin’ away from pain when you’ve been victimized,” drawing cheers from the crowd.
Green Day Band Dedicates A Song to Palestine at Coachella pic.twitter.com/QFg03KByxG
— Khalissee (@Kahlissee) April 13, 2025
The band has a history of politically charged messaging. Last month at a concert in Melbourne, Armstrong changed a lyric in the same song to sing ““Am I retarded or am I just JD Vance?” the UK’s Jewish News reported.
Tensions are high between Ireland and Israel. Israel closed its embassy in Ireland in December, citing “extreme anti-Israel policy of the Irish government.” Dublin joined South Africa at the International Court of Justice in its genocide case against Israel.
The war in Gaza was sparked by the Hamas terror group’s October 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.
More than 50,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, the enclave’s Hamas-run health authorities say. The figures cannot be independently verified and do not differentiate between combatants and civilians.
Many on social media made the connection between the performance at Coachella, and the massacre at the Nova festival.
During the October 7, 2023, shock attack, more than 100 Hamas terrorists stumbled upon the Nova music festival, an outdoor overnight rave taking place near the Gaza border community of Re’im, where they brutally massacred and abducted partygoers.
In all, 344 civilians who attended the Nova party and 34 security personnel were killed during the attack, which included sexual crimes and other brutal acts. The terrorists abducted another 44 to the Gaza Strip.
A day later, Bono, the frontman of Irish band U2, paid a moving tribute to those murdered at the desert rave. At a show at the Las Vegas Sphere, Bono dedicated the song “Pride” to “those beautiful kids at that music festival.”
The Times of Israel Community.