Following a Massive Attack performance at the Lido Festival in London on 6 June 2025, UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) were contacted by several Jewish and Israeli audience members who were deeply distressed and traumatised by what they saw and heard.

Images of Palestinian terrorist leaders and BDS slogans were projected onto a large screen. An anti-Israel activist invited onto the stage compared Israel’s actions with the Holocaust and led the audience in anti-Israel chanting.

The activist invited by Massive Attack asked the crowd to

“Make some noise if you’ve marched for Palestine over these last two years”

“Make some noise if you want your favourite artists to stand up for Palestine”

Staying silent while the people around then were cheering would make the Israelis and Jews stand out from the crowd in a hostile atmosphere.

Several of the Israelis attending the performance had friends and relatives who were murdered by Hamas on 7 Oct 2023 at the Nova festival and were extremely upset. They came seeking musical unity and were instead subjected to divisive and offensive political theatre.

The scenes felt to some of the Jews present like a Nazi era rally, with crowds chanting in unison, manipulated by carefully crafted messaging.  The experience  was so intimidating and hostile for many of them that they had to walk out.

UKLFI wrote to Massive Attack conveying these concerns and requesting that future performances do not repeat these actions. We support free speech and artistic expression, but we felt this performance crossed a line and made a number of Jewish and Israeli audience members feel deeply traumatised.  Massive Attack did not reply.

Instead, Massive Attack has now falsely claimed that UKLFI runs aggressive and vexatious campaigns against themselves and others. They say they have formed an “Ethical Syndicate Palestine (ESP)”,  consisting of a collective of artists including themselves , Kneecap and some others.

However, it is certainly not ethical to bully Jewish or Israeli members of the audience, and encourage the crowd to join in.

Massive Attack and others have attempted to demonise the groups which help victims of antisemitism. As a result, UKLFI has recently received some hate mail from various individuals. This will not deter us from continuing our work assisting victims of antisemitism and anti-Israel hatred.  Unfortunately our workload has increased some 20 fold since 7 October 2023. We will continue to do all we can to help victims of antisemitism.