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British Airways breaks ties with Louis Theroux after interview with ‘Death to the IDF’ artist Bob Vylan

(JTA) — British Airways has dropped its sponsorship of documentarian Louis Theroux’s podcast following an interview with British punk musician Bobby Vylan where the artist defended his chants of “death, death to the IDF” at the Glastonbury music festival.

Following the band’s Glastonbury performance in June, the two members of Bob Vylan had their U.S. visas revoked by the State Department ahead of a planned tour this month. The BBC also said the livestream of the performance broke its guidelines because Bob Vylan’s chants could “fairly be characterised as antisemitic.”

Bob Vylan’s frontman, whose real name is Pascal Robinson-Foster, Theroux that he did not regret the chants during the interview.

“If I was to go on Glastonbury again tomorrow? Yeah, I would do it again. I’m not regretful of it,” said Vylan. “I’d do it again tomorrow, twice on Sundays. I’m not regretful of it at all. Like, the subsequent backlash that I’ve faced is minimal. It’s minimal compared to what people in Palestine are going through.”

Robinson-Foster also criticized a report by the Community Security Trust, British Jewry’s antisemitism watchdog, that found antisemitic incidents had spiked the day after Bob Vylan’s set, telling Theroux that it was unclear what the group was “counting as antisemitic.”

“I don’t think I have created an unsafe atmosphere for the Jewish community,” said Robinson-Foster. “If there were large numbers of people being like, going out and ‘Bob Vylan made me do this,’ then maybe I might go, woof, I’ve had a negative impact here. Again, in that report, what definition are they going by? We don’t know that.”

During the interview, Robinson-Foster also said that the “focus” should not have been placed on the “death to the IDF” chant, but rather “on the conditions that allow for that chant to exist.”

“Ultimately, the fight is against white supremacy, right?,” said Robinson-Foster. “That is what the fight is against. And I think white supremacy is displayed so vividly in Zionists.”

In response, Theroux replied, “They say we’re not white, we’re Jewish, right?”

Later, Theroux appeared to agree with Robinson-Foster’s assertion that the “Zionist movement and the war crimes being committed by Israel” should be viewed through the “lens of white supremacy.”

“I think I’d add to that, there’s an even more macro lens which you can put on it, which is that Jewish identity in the Jewish community, as expressed in Israel, has become almost like an acceptable quote, unquote, way of understanding ethno-nationalism,” said Theroux, later adding that “this sense of post-Holocaust Jewish exceptionalism or Zionist exceptionalism, has become a role model on the national stage for what these white identitarians would like to do in their own countries.”

Following the interview, Theroux drew criticism for failing to challenge Robinson-Foster’s defense of his chants during the interview.

“Louis Theroux has every right to interview whoever he wants, but with that right comes responsibility,” Jewish film producer Leo Pearlman told the British outlet Jewish News. “When you give a microphone to someone who proudly repeats a genocidal chant that played a part in inspiring attacks on Jews across Britain, you’re not probing hate, you’re amplifying it.”

Dave Rich, the head of policy at the Community Service Trust, wrote in a blog post that he had been distressed that Theroux did not note that Robinson-Foster had publicly undercut the idea that his chant of “death to the IDF” was not meant as a call to voice when he commented at another concert, “We are for an armed resistance. We wanna make that explicitly f–king clear.” Rich also criticized the decision to release the interview even after the attack on a Manchester, England, synagogue in which two people were killed on Yom Kippur.

“Theroux’s podcast was recorded before the Manchester attack, which he acknowledges in the introduction,” Rich wrote. “But they still went ahead and published it anyway, as if the death of two Jews due to an Israel-hating jihadist doesn’t change the context of an interview with someone who became famous for calling for death for Israelis.”

After the interview aired on Spotify last Friday, British Airways issued a statement to announce it had dropped its sponsorship of Theroux’s show.

“Our sponsorship of the series has now been paused and the advert has been removed,” the airline wrote in a statement shared with the British outlet Jewish News. “We’re grateful that this was brought to our attention, as the content clearly breaches our sponsorship policy in relation to politically sensitive or controversial subject matters.”

The episode follows the release, in April, of a documentary by Theroux titled “The Settlers” that served a searing portrayal of the far-right Israeli settler movement in the West Bank.

The post British Airways breaks ties with Louis Theroux after interview with ‘Death to the IDF’ artist Bob Vylan appeared first on The Forward.

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Tucker’s Ideas About Jews Come from Darkest Corners of the Internet, Says Huckabee After Combative Interview

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee looks on during the day he visits the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem’s Old City, April 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

i24 NewsIn a combative interview with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, right-wing firebrand Tucker Carlson made a host of contentious and often demonstrably false claims that quickly went viral online. Huckabee, who repeatedly challenged the former Fox News star during the interview, subsequently made a long post on X, identifying a pattern of bad-faith arguments, distortions and conspiracies in Carlson’s rhetorical style.

Huckabee pointed out his words were not accorded by Carlson the same degree of attention and curiosity the anchor evinced toward such unsavory characters as “the little Nazi sympathizer Nick Fuentes or the guy who thought Hitler was the good guy and Churchill the bad guy.”

“What I wasn’t anticipating was a lengthy series of questions where he seemed to be insinuating that the Jews of today aren’t really same people as the Jews of the Bible,” Huckabee wrote, adding that Tucker’s obsession with conspiracies regarding the provenance of Ashkenazi Jews obscured the fact that most Israeli Jews were refugees from the Arab and Muslim world.

The idea that Ashkenazi Jews are an Asiatic tribe who invented a false ancestry “gained traction in the 80’s and 90’s with David Duke and other Klansmen and neo-Nazis,” Huckabee wrote. “It has really caught fire in recent years on the Internet and social media, mostly from some of the most overt antisemites and Jew haters you can find.”

Carlson branded Israel “probably the most violent country on earth” and cited the false claim that Israel President Isaac Herzog had visited the infamous island of the late, disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

“The current president of Israel, whom I know you know, apparently was at ‘pedo island.’ That’s what it says,” Carlson said, citing a debunked claim made by The Times reporter Gabrielle Weiniger. “Still-living, high-level Israeli officials are directly implicated in Epstein’s life, if not his crimes, so I think you’d be following this.”

Another misleading claim made by Carlson was that there were more Christians in Qatar than in Israel.

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Pezeshkian Says Iran Will Not Bow to Pressure Amid US Nuclear Talks

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian attends the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit 2025, in Tianjin, China, September 1, 2025. Iran’s Presidential website/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Saturday that his country would not bow its head to pressure from world powers amid nuclear talks with the United States.

“World powers are lining up to force us to bow our heads… but we will not bow our heads despite all the problems that they are creating for us,” Pezeshkian said in a speech carried live by state TV.

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Italy’s RAI Apologizes after Latest Gaffe Targets Israeli Bobsleigh Team

Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics – Bobsleigh – 4-man Heat 1 – Cortina Sliding Centre, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy – February 21, 2026. Adam Edelman of Israel, Menachem Chen of Israel, Uri Zisman of Israel, Omer Katz of Israel in action during Heat 1. Photo: REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha

Italy’s state broadcaster RAI was forced to apologize to the Jewish community on Saturday after an off‑air remark advising its producers to “avoid” the Israeli crew was broadcast before coverage of the Four-Man bobsleigh event at the Winter Olympics.

The head of RAI’s sports division had already resigned earlier in the week after his error-ridden commentary at the Milano Cortina 2026 opening ceremony two weeks ago triggered a revolt among its journalists.

On Saturday, viewers heard “Let’s avoid crew number 21, which is the Israeli one” and then “no, because …” before the sound was cut off.

RAI CEO Giampaolo Rossi said the incident represented a “serious” breach of the principles of impartiality, respect and inclusion that should guide the public broadcaster.

He added that RAI had opened an internal inquiry to swiftly determine any responsibility and any potential disciplinary procedures.

In a separate statement RAI’s board of directors condemned the remark as “unacceptable.”

The board apologized to the Jewish community, the athletes involved and all viewers who felt offended.

RAI is the country’s largest media organization and operates national television, radio and digital news services.

The union representing RAI journalists, Usigrai, had said Paolo Petrecca’s opening ceremony commentary had dealt “a serious blow” to the company’s credibility.

His missteps included misidentifying venues and public figures, and making comments about national teams that were widely criticized.

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