Left rectangle ads redesigned
Robert Ripps book
History of Tribeca Buildings
Irish band that supports Palestine is scheduled at Pier 17 on Yom Kippur
The Irish hip hop band (yes, you heard that right) Kneecap, known for its political views including Irish republicanism, anti-Zionism and overt support for Hamas and Hezbollah, have booked Pier 17 on Yom Kippur — Wednesday, Oct. 1 — and neighbors have started a petition against the show. The show is sold out. I am assuming the date was not a coincidence, though I have asked Pier 17 for comment.
The band’s recent performance at Coachella already caused outrage after they led a series of chants in support of Palestine, relating the war in Gaza to The Troubles. It’s not easy to find footage; Coachella did not include it in any of its official coverage.
“The Irish not too long ago were persecuted at the hands of the Brits, but we were never bombed from the fucking skies with no where to go,” the band said from the stage, to cheers from the audience. “The Palestinians have no where to go, it’s their fucking home and they are bombing them from the skies. If you are not calling it a genocide then what the fuck are you calling it?”
Kneecap also projected three screens of text on the screens behind them: “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people,” followed by: “It is being enabled by the US government who arm and fund Israel despite their war crimes,” and “Fuck Israel. Free Palestine.”
Tribecan Logan Levkoff has started a Change.org petition, calling for the event producer Live Nation, which runs Pier 17, to cancel Kneecap’s performance and “refrain from giving a platform to artists who engage in hate speech, glorify terror, or marginalize vulnerable communities.”
Kneecap has been “unapologetically supportive of Hamas since October 8th as evidenced in their social media,” the petition reads. “Kneecap’s rhetoric and public statements have caused great distress and have greatly exacerbated an already heightened atmosphere of antisemitism in the United States as well as around the globe. It is also impossible to ignore the tragic massacre that took place at the Nova Music Festival in Israel on October 7, 2023, where hundreds of young people were murdered in cold blood by Hamas terrorists. This horrifying attack took place at a peaceful music festival, a space meant for joy, expression, and unity. To now host a band that celebrates that same terror, and does so at a music venue, is profoundly disrespectful to the memory of those victims and to the global music community as a whole.”
“Even more concerning is that one of their New York City shows is scheduled on Kol Nidre, the holiest night of the Jewish calendar…Additionally, the choice to host this group at a venue located just steps away from the 9/11 Memorial — a place that honors victims of terror — is especially inappropriate given the band’s public alignment with extremist and violent ideologies.”
The band is from West Belfast and is composed of Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Próvaí, the stage names of Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, Naoise Ó Cairealláin and J.J. Ó Dochartaigh, respectively, according to Wikipedia. They rap in a mixture of English and Irish, and their lyrics often contain Irish republican themes. Their first single “C.E.A.R.T.A.” (Irish for “Rights”) was released in 2017, followed by their debut album 3CAG, in 2018. Their second album Fine Art was released in 2024, and a biographical film about the group was released later the same year.
They boycotted the music festival SXSW because of its connections to the US military, and they have played several concerts in support of aid for Palestinians. A bio pic about them was released last year:
48 Comments
Comment:
Medium rectangle #1 (top)
Right column rectangle ads
Restaurant guide icon
This post is so confused, I almost don’t know where to begin.
The band we’re supposed to object to, Kneecap, is scheduled to perform more than five months from now, on Kol Nidre / Yom Kippur. Yes, the holiest night of the year for observant Jews. So what? Is the performance going to interfere with our devotion? How, exactly?
The venue, on the East River, is “just steps away from the 9/11 Memorial,” says the petition seeking to stop the performance. It’s actually 3,800 feet from it. Nearly three-fourths of a mile. A lot of steps. And so what — what does a band’s pro-Palestine, anti-Israel rhetoric have to do with 9/11?
As it happens, Israeli far-right politician and Netanyahu-government minister of national security Itamar Ben-Gvir is scheduled to speak tomorrow (4/24) at 12:30 at a venue in FiDi, at One Battery Park Plaza, though that may change due to “security.” Ben-Gvir has done orders of magnitude more damage in his life than Kneecap and its members have in theirs. He has devoted his adult life to supporting and carrying out the expulsion of Palestinians from their lands on the West Bank and elsewhere. He has been convicted eight times “of crimes including incitement to racism and support for a terrorist organization” (Wiki — the page is terrifying) and has in his living room a portrait of Baruch Goldstein, “the religious extremist who, in 1994, murdered 29 Palestinian people in Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, an incident of Jewish terrorism.” (also Wiki) Yet you didn’t run a story on *his* appearance, which, again, is tomorrow, not 161 days from now.
Nor did you need to run such a story, IMO. I hope to be outside Ben-Gvir’s venue tomorrow, not to shut it down — I’m a First Amendment absolutist and believe in the right to hear hateful and loathsome speech — but to protest him, hiw views and his policies. Tribecans and others who don’t care for Kneecap’s politics and/or music can do the same on Oct 1.
Amen.
So long as there is no direct/clear indictment to violence, free speech should be protected at all costs. We otherwise do not live in a “free country”.
(And Ben-Gvir is indeed about as loathsome, arrogant and despicable a human being as one might find anywhere on Earth today.)
How are Jews that are opposed to Kneecap supposed to « protest » them when the performance is on Yom Kippur? You must have missed that part when focusing on how many feet from 9/11 memorial the venue is. Maybe you also missed that pro-Pals have tended to hold their big demonstrations on Saturdays and Jewish holidays.
Classic egocentrism in a time of mass starvation and bombing of the Palestinians that Israel has imprisoned in Gaza.. Most protests are held on Saturdays (Women’s March, National Day of Action, March for Our Lives ad nauseam) because Saturday falls on a WEEKEND, when many people are not working. And every single pro-Palestine protest has strong representation from Neturei Karta, a community of Orthodox anti-Zionist Jews, which demonstrates what we all know deep down: that the antisemitism lies are propaganda. Everything Kneecap has said is true. We just want the genocide to stop.
It’s always news for me when Tribecans are organizing something, or even organizing against something.
I see antisemitism is alive and well even in the tribeca citizen comments section. While they won’t admit it, the reality is these same people would be the first ones to condemn the behavior of third-tier bands like kneecap if the intended target was blacks, gays, trans people, native americans, etc. They just hate Jews but hide behind “free speech absolutism” lol. My guess is neither of these jagoffs was living in tribeca the day america was attacked 24 years ago.
Totally agree. And the difference in the tone of the comments on this topic versus those horrified by the religious beliefs of the owners of Hobby Lobby is stark.
Doesn’t surprise me. NYC is not the same great city it used to be – it’s now a cesspool of transplants hellbent on anything Anti-American and Anti-Jew – coddled by the pathetic city council and weak university leaders.
To be fair, that is an apples to oranges comparison. “Blacks, gays, trans people, native americans, etc.” have not killed over 50,000 Palestinians in the past 18 months. Israel (not the Jewish people – Netanyahu/the Israeli government) has. What Hamas did is reprehensible and should be condemned. Even if one is ok with retaliation on the part of Israel, it has been imprecise and disproportional and should stop, and I don’t believe it is antisemitic to say so.
“third-tier bands like kneecap” …taking a page from the Trump playbook, I see. Just because YOU, Mr. T, haven’t heard of them, that doesn’t make them “third-tier.”
“My guess is neither of these jagoffs was living in tribeca the day america was attacked 24 years ago.”
A few things…
1. There are *three* members of Kneecap.
2. None (as in ZERO) of the hijackers involved in the 9/11 attacks were Palestinian.
3. America should be capitalized.
4. The impetus behind 9/11 was based on Al Qaeda’s objection to American forces in the Arab Peninsula. It was not about Israel/Palestine.
“My guess is neither of these jagoffs was living in tribeca the day america was attacked 24 years ago.”
I was. I was living in Tribeca on 9/11. And you know what it taught me? People will use their religion and their convictions to destroy life and start wars because they’re so convinced they’re right that they can’t see how wrong they’ve become. Hamas are monsters and have given the Israeli government the opportunity to show they are, too (just as we did in our revenge-fueled post-9/11 wars).
Stop conflating Hamas with Palestinians. Are you MAGA just because you’re American? It’s a simplification of something that is beyond complicated, but there is no excuse for this sort of death, killing, maiming. Where does it end? And yet here are a ton of people mad about a dumb concert.
I don’t care what your religion is: no one “deserves” ANY land badly enough that they’re allowed to murder children asleep in their beds, and it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference if they’re in Gaza or Be’eri.
Wow, what a one-sided article. The headline itself would be right at home on the Fox News website.
Agreed. Although the writer innocently says that they just like to cover things that Tribecans are for and against, the article is highly skewed as you can see from the comments sprinkled in by the admin that the concert was planned on that specific day, and the bandmates are somehow Hamas and Hezbollah sympathizers.
But what were we expecting from this publication that was gushing over the new military-grade Israeli flight simulator in FiDi a little while back?
The headline has since been changed to “band that supports Palestine” (previously “band that supports Hamas”) which seems like a more objective, journalistic headline.
And agreed — perhaps the band intentionally scheduled the concert for Yom Kippur. Maybe it was a random Saturday night in October. Both seem equally plausible so it seems like a stretch to make guesses either way unless it’s confirmed.
As a Tribecan – and the author of the petition mentioned above – these comments defending the performance of a band who actively and proudly supports terrorism are an embarrassment. This isn’t about “free speech.” This isn’t an American band exercising their constitutional rights. This is an Irish band in our country actively harming Jews by engaging in blood libel and supporting movements that are anti-American and anti-democracy. And as someone who has been to Israel many times since 10/7, I can tell you that most people have no idea the extent of the brutality and savagery Hamas carried out and anyone who wants a band who proudly praises that butchery anywhere – let alone near our 9/11 memorial – needs to rethink where they’re living. And that anyone okay with praising this butchery might be a neighbor is deeply troubling. (Oh and the idea that fighting antisemitism and terrorism is a Fox News article is absurd.)
Just curious, can you show me an example of the band specifically supporting what Hamas did?
Well let’s get some clarity: Pier 17 is owned by the people of NYC with a long term lease holder of Seaport Entertainment Group. Live Nation may be the producer and Ticket seller but everyone should be listed on the petition. Antisemitism should not be promoted, tolerated and especially not fiscally rewarded.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas savagely burned innocent people and babies alive, raped, and cut off heads. There is footage of terrorists using a shovel to remove the head of a young man lying defenseless on the floor. With each strike they shouted “Allahu Akbar.” As recounted by journalist, Douglas Murray, it wasn’t just the war cries. The terrorists showed visible glee and intense joy. They were proud of their actions. Billions of dollars were given to the Hamas Government in Gaza to build schools, hospitals and other infrastructure. Instead the money has been used by Hamas’s leaders to either enrich themselves (the group’s leaders became billionaires) and to build tunnels, and foster hatred. They then used the population of Gaza as human shields when they were inevitably retaliated against. I fully understand the arguments about freedom of speech, but it seems to me that Pier 17 could be put to better use than to give Kneecap a forum to support and help perpetuate a culture of murder.
During the 15 years prior to Oct 7, 2023, the state of Israel murdered more than 6,000 Palestinian Muslims and Christians, including over 1,500 women and children, and imprisoned thousands more in military prisons, many of whom were subjected to torture, without due process afforded to Israeli civilians.
There are many, many Arabs and Muslims that are appalled and outraged by the atrocities committed by Hamas against both Israeli and Palestinian civilians, but to pretend that Israel and its supporters have not created the conditions for a group like Hamas to flourish (and, in the case of Netanyahu, actively encouraged and helped fund Hamas in Gaza) is the epitome of living in one’s own self-reverential bubble.
It’s as if only some (white, wealthy) lives matter, and others don’t.
And the blockade of Gaza is a literal act of war.
No outrage about the wholesale slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian children over the last 19 months, to say nothing of the unabated fact of an ongoing ethnic cleansing ever since the inception of the Zionist enterprise? In fact, one should even object to the very term “pro-Palestinian”; were those opposed to the Nazi extermination of the Jews “pro-Jewish” or simply “pro-humanity”? Students – many of whom are Jewish – being rounded up, arrested and even deported, all because they dare to raise their voices against an internationally recognized genocide fully funded, facilitated and indeed encouraged by our own government? A truly Orwellian state of affairs has come to fruition.
Every time that Israel has reached out with the Camp David Accords, Oslo Accords, and many others to implement a two state solution, they were rejected by Yassir Arafat and their other leaders. They never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. The truth is that they don’t want to be neighbors with Israel, they want Israel liquidated. They teach hatred in their schools, and isn’t it interesting that no other Arab countries ever offer any refuge for the Palestinians? To add some further perspective, Israel is a country with a population of just 9 million people. America is a country of approximately 333 million people. The death toll on October 7th was the equivalent of some 44,400 Americans being killed by terrorists on a single day. Or around fifteen 9/11s. The kidnap toll if it had happened by ratio in the U.S. would have been almost 10,000 Americans taken from their homes as hostages. Edan Alexander, an American from Tenafly, NJ is still being held as a hostage. If October 7th had not happened, Gaza would not be in ruins today. Hamas had no concern for the civilian population. They embedded themselves to ensure massive casualties. The whole situation is tragic, but Israel will never relinquish its right to exist, nor should they.
Ha, you use the 44,000 hypothetical death figure for hyperbolic effect. FIFTEEN 9/11s! Can you imagine?!
One needn’t imagine. Because Israel has *actually slaughtered* over 50,000 Palestinians, the majority being women and children. Let me guess, all ‘human shields’, right? You are depraved.
And coming from a people who suffered indiscriminate extermination… it’s morally repugnant.
You want some hyperbolic data? Imagine if Americans committed an Act of Terror in China, and in response they decimated over EIGHT MILLION Americans (2.5% of our population). Over four million women and children.
You have become what you seek to prevent in this world.
The same people who decry being called racist for opposing Ibram Kendi’s absurd views on approaching everything in life through a racial lens…are the first to wield the ANTISEMITISM card when somebody opposes the Israeli’s government’s foreign policy of occupation and subjugation.
Grow up. Are half of Israeli’s antisemitic?
Israel is a Nation. It is NOT an occupation. There never was a nation called Palestine. Jews were there in Biblical times well before any others with claims to the land. I did not use the words anti semitic in either of my posts, but if the shoe fits, wear it. I am not a fan of Netanyahu, but when it comes to subjugations, you might want to examine the rights of women and those with alternative lifestyles in palestinian controlled areas.
So the ~5 million Palestinians who live in Gaza and the West Bank should what? Not have equal rights? Continue to be subjugated? Be deported?
Enlighten us as to what you think these people deserve, or do not deserve.
Gaza was turned over with Greenhouses and Billions of dollars to build hospitals, schools, and a productive society. Instead they embraced a murderous cult who built tunnels. Perhaps you should go to Gaza to enlighten them. I’m sure you would be embraced and then pushed off the top of a building. Now explain to me which Arab countries are embracing a Jewish population.
By the way, it’s not just Jews that Hamas wants to murder. You probably don’t fit neatly into their extremes fundamentalist beliefs. Try reasoning with a cult that welcomes death more than life.
Thanks for eliding my question. Hamas probably doesn’t like me, you’re right, because I am an agnostic. But I have the humanity to remember that Hamas does not equal Palestinian, and that indiscriminate killing and the denial of basic human rights is just plain wrong.
But glad we had this exchange so I can make sure to never patronize any of your establishments ever again. Good day.
lots more jew haters have shown up here, but to be fair to them, they seem to lack even the most basic cognitive abilities. perhaps they are all just developmentally disabled as they say. the reality is that every last death of every innocent palestinian civilian is the direct fault and responsibility of hamas, and the ideology they perpetuate. until every last member of hamas is wiped off the face of the earth, they will continue to be responsible for nothing but death of innocents of all races.
oh and props to logan for fighting the good fight.
The loss of life in Gaza is tragic, but Hamas deliberately and cowardly embeds themselves within the civilian population. The Palestinian population chose Hamas to be their leadership. Perhaps they had no choice. But Israel has a right to defend itself, and Israel has a right to exist. I suspect that Malcolm would be fine if Israel were eliminated. Unlike him, I put my full name with what I write and stand by it. And I do not subscribe to the cancel culture. I do not know if he is connected to any business, but I would not stop patronizing his place of employ based solely on a difference of opinion.
Your comment above implies that Palestinians don’t have a right to live there, or if they do, can only live under Israeli dominion. I’m sorry, but that’s more than a difference of opinion to me.
Again, I only believe in equal rights for all, and do not believe in ethnic cleansing whatsoever, and think everyone should be allowed to live there in freedom and equality.
And you’ll forgive me for not using my full name when our current environment is scary for people who hold beliefs such as mine.
Having been to Gaza and the West Bank many times in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, I can tell you that Israel is not the cause of the Arabs’ misery. Their leaders are corrupt and keep the population as perpetual victims, Arab society is rigidly clan-based, and Islamic fundamentalism keeps them enslaved by Sharia law and the cult of martyrdom. Hatred of Jews is a basic tenet of Islam and it’s inculcated in the people starting when they are young children. “Free free Palestine” is a joke – there’s no freedom in any Arab or Muslim nation. Ask any Arab living in Israel whether they’d prefer to live in “Palestine.” Sorry not sorry but the Jewish people will not allow themselves to be annihilated again and will do whatever it takes to survive. So-called “pro-Palestinian” protests are really jihad attacks on Western civilization using impressionable indoctrinated students to achieve this agenda. The members of Kneecap are ignorant haters pushing vile terrorist ideology and they should be kicked out of our country.
Hear Hear!
Shocked and disgusted that this neighborhood newsletter has entered a fraught political discourse which demonizes Muslims. This site has gone down the tubes since Erik left. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Try to stay neutral and avoid involving racists and proponents of genocide in your posts. Revolting!
Was just telling my son that there’s probably 10% of people left in the world that still agree with what Israel’s doing, and most of them just so happen to be right here in NYC!
Mind-boggling to believe that local doctors and business owners who are intelligent enough to create and run successful enterprises (like restaurants, newspapers, etc.) somehow can’t seem to understand that calling for freedom, safety, and equal rights for Palestinians does not equate to antisemitism or support for Hamas. It’s quite clear now that freedom of speech only applies as long as it’s not critical of Israel.
On a side note, just realized that Logan Levkoff, the woman behind the Change.org petition, used to teach sex ed classes at my son’s elementary school. Sits a little odd knowing that someone who does not care about the rights of all children was somehow qualified to be teaching my own.
Since 10/7, antisemitic incidents in New York City have risen 148%. In our precious neighborhood, I have witnessed anti-Jewish graffiti, marches where participants are wearing Hezbollah and Hamas headbands, and protests with signage suggesting that Jews belong in the garbage in order to “clean up.” As sad and dismayed as I have been for the past 18 months, I was stupidly under the assumption that these acts were not carried out by my neighbors. The comments here have proven otherwise. I actually cannot believe what I am reading from people who have lived side by side with my family for over 25 years.
Where in the comments do you see anyone saying anything akin to any of this? No one in the comment section has defended the atrocities of 10/7 or said anything in support of Hamas. Questioning the breadth and scope of Israel’s actions over the past year isn’t the same as supporting Hamas. AT ALL. The mental gymnastics required to get from here to there is wild.
For the past 61 days “Israel” has escalated its genocide of the Palestinian people by implementing a total blockade of the food, water and supplies Gazans need to survive. This follows 19 months of constant bombardment and 75 years of illegal occupation following the 1948 Nakba. Hundreds of thousands of innocent children, women and men are being starved to death and have been murdered by “Israel”. And today, its cabinet voted to capture all of Gaza and expel the surviving Palestinian people from their own land (in a concentration camp). But yes, let’s hand-wring over Tribeca Jews feeling unsafe because people wear keffiyehs to demonstrate their support for Palestinians. I feel embarrassed for anyone who would quote ADL stats about rising antisemitism, when those stats have been proven to be manufactured to advance the right-wing political organization’s mission to support Israel – not to protect the Jewish diaspora. Raising fear about antisemitism helps drive policies to support funding the Zionist entity’s genocide, increased militarized policing, and repression of free speech. Who cares if an Irish anti-genocide band is performing on a Jewish holiday a mile away from the 9/11 Museum. Did “Israel” halt its genocide for Ramadan? (The answer is no, but you already know that).
Maybe one of the less brain-dead hamas supporters on here can intelligently make the case for what hamas and their ideology add to the world in a positive way. Maybe one of the female Jew haters on here can explain why they would gladly go live among and be ruled by hamas and be enslaved under their radical medieval woman-hating ideology. Maybe one of the antisemites on here can educate the rest of us on why any group or society whose primary objective is the eradication of a nation and race of people who contribute to the world and the advancement of civilization should not be demonized and eradicated themselves. If there is a single “positive” thing that came out of 10/7 it’s that the disgusting “americans” that support terrorists and hate Jews have made themselves known for the rest of us to see and shun — at least the few of those who do not cowardly hide behind masks or keyboards while they spew their hatred.
Rereading in case I missed something but havent seen a single commenter on here defending Hamas’ actions on 10/7, so I’m not sure why the argument keeps coming back to “but Hamas.” Israel is committing crimes against humanity and nearly every human rights organization in the world, including Israeli ones, agree. Accusing people of being “antisemitic jew haters” for saying innocent people shouldnt be killed does not help your cause.
You aren’t fooling anyone
Have any of the hamas supporters here blamed HAMAS for the deaths of palistinians? they could have stopped it at pretty much any time. including now. But when your “religion” mandates the hatred and massacre of Jews well this is what you get until every last vestige of hamas is destroyed.
Israel is killing Palestinians, not Hamas. But well done, Mr T, I see you’ve passed Hasbara 101.
Israeli historian, llan Pappé, sums it up quite nicely:
“Some of the most sophisticated and articulate people become such imbeciles who parrot the Israeli script without any criticism, without any of the faculties that they have whenever they examine anything else in the world.
You are willing to degrade yourself, to satisfy what? To satisfy a state that commits daily genocide.”
lmao sarah that is some precious naivete regarding not only the circumstances of what has taken place in gaza due to the raping, baby-killing, mutilating, murdering, indeed actually genocidal, organization called hamas, but also the sum total of human (and likely pre-human) history. it’s quite sad that people have to go to such lengths to rationalize their own hatred of Jews. just own it if that’s who you are, would have far more respect for someone like you if you did.
also ironic that the origin of the name sarah is hebrew. can’t make it up.
This post is so absurd I don’t know where to begin. Starting with the very first paragraph, only one item is true: they do support Irish republicanism. They do not support Hamas, Hezbollah, or are anti-Zionist. If you spent 5 minutes reading any non-hysterical articles about this band you would understand that.
Tribeca Citizen is your site, Pam. But I’m not here for partisan political content. Publishing obviously false rhetoric is irresponsible.
I know this has ignited strong feelings, but for the record: I can absolutely appreciate the band’s identification with and support of Palestinians, and I applaud their efforts to help provide aid. But given their recent performances and their methods for expressing those opinions, booking a concert on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar in New York City is something altogether different. And as I said previously, if neighbors are taking action on something, I usually cover it.
Is there any evidence the band chose that date for that specific reason? If so, I have yet to see it.
Pier 17 has other midweek shows all season (including Wednesdays), and Kneecap is also playing the same venue the following Friday.