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Glastonbury Festival made headlines across the world this year, but not because of the music. The focus before the festival had been on the Irish rap trio Kneecap—who had waved the flag of Hezbollah and said that, “The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP.” But it was London-based punk-rap duo Bob Vylan that went viral for leading a series of Palestine-related political chants, including one in which they call for “death, death to the IDF.”

It wasn’t the first time that Vylan had chanted such things. Although the group later tried to frame their chant as a call to dismantle the Israeli military, footage from 28 May has since surfaced of the group’s frontman Pascal Robinson-Foster calling for “death to every single IDF soldier.” Indeed, during their Glastonbury set itself, Robinson-Foster shone a light on his intentions, saying: “We are the violent punks, because sometimes you gotta get your message across with violence, because that is the only language that some people speak, unfortunately.”

This is a sentiment that I’ve encountered many times, as a Palestinian who has talked to people from both sides of the conflict. A lot of Palestinians believe that violence is the only language that Israelis understand, and a lot of Israelis believe that violence is the only language that Palestinians understand, and the consequence of this is more spirals of violence. It’s not a new sentiment in the Levant—but to see it take root in Britain is concerning, not least because it risks importing the cycles of hatred and violence from the Middle East.