In 2024, after the Glastonbury Festival, Sarah, a Jewish artist who works in the events industry, was added to a Signal messaging group. That was not in itself unusual, she told me – “people looking for work, people looking to join spaces.” But the group, which was originally named ‘Cobra’, soon developed into something else. “They basically were creating a plan in August last year. The original text was, ‘we need to go to the Boom [festival in Portugal] and disrupt these Zionist IOF people who are going to come after killing babies’. And it just got worse.”
By the time she was kicked out of the group ten days or so ago, there were around 25 people in it – including a couple of sympathetic individuals who have still fed her information. And Sarah [her name has been changed for confidentiality], tells me something else. “They were all British”.
The story first broke on Monday evening, when the Israeli broadcaster, Kan, aired an interview with Sarah, her face blurred. I managed to speak to her on Tuesday, and was sent screenshots of some of the comments and statements that had been made in the signal group.
At first, they look like the general detritus one finds on social media. One includes a link to the Boom festival website and says: “Would be good if we can target this festival with e-mails to find out what they are doing to support the cultural boycott against the Zionist entity.” Another says “A vile people. The day that the Zionist entity is erased from the map can not come to [sic] soon. Boycotting Israel means complete cultural boycott.”
The comments then begin to spiral – again, as one regularly finds on social media. Calls for cultural boycott are mixed in with support for Yemenite and Iranian attacks on Israel, and claims that “Israelis abroad are always shitty arrogant racists, always trying to rip off the locals…and no that is not racist, Israel are not a race, they are from all over the world mainly Poland and Ukraine.”
At some point, someone says that Israelis will be attending trance parties all over Europe this summer, and introduces the idea that “acid dealers should be making up a special strychnine recipe for the Israelis”.
Strychine is a highly toxic substance; ingesting it can lead to an extremely painful death.
Further comments followed: “They are pretty much all IOF veterans, boys and girls. I was thinking of giving them a taste of their own medicine. Wake them up and let them know that they are getting a humanitarian warning to leave their tents, make sure that they are at a safe(ish) distance away and then torch their tent. I’d let them know that I am the most moral arsonist in the world and then give them a strychnine drop to cheer them up. Enjoy your trip”. The message was followed by a laughing face emoji.
“Oh c’mon, Strychnine in their acid is not dismemberment of babies….they are all current or former IOF after all…what’s a little strychnine to people who have torn babies to shreds while wearing their mother’s stolen underwear”, another message reads.
In response to someone stating that “you cannot end a cycle of violence with more violence”, another person responds that “even if the strychnine in the acid is not to your taste what’s wrong with targeting every Israeli tourist abroad (they have all served in the IOF) and making their lives very uncomfortable…letting them know that every time they eat that people are spitting and pissing in their food?”
Instances of people in Europe treating Israelis badly were also shared and praised. In one example shared, a Bulgarian hotel owner reportedly denied an Israeli couple any toilet paper. When they complained, he responded “I hope you burn in hell…you don’t need toilet paper, you are the most disgusting animals on the planet”. This was shared in the group with the accompanying sentence “Big up the Bulgarian hotel manager”, with a fist emoji and a Palestinian flag.
Sarah decided that she needed to inform those responsible for organising the Boom festival. They told her that they had informed the local police, but she has doubts.
“No one [from the police] contacted me, nobody asked me ‘what’s in there’. Nobody came back to me.”
Sarah contacted people within Israel, trying to inform the security services there. It was suggested to her that European bureaucracy might pay more attention to the case if she brought it to the media, which is why she went to Kan originally. She is open to providing the details of the people involved to the UK security services.
She describes herself as “absolutely heartbroken.
“What happened on 7/10 happened not only my Jewish tribe, but my festival tribe, that I have worked in for decades.”
Hamas terrorists murdered hundreds at the Nova dance festival on 7 October.
“Not only did I lose those people that day to barbarism, but I’ve also lost my festival tribe to propaganda, and it’s heartbreaking to see people who are supposed to be loving, kind, open hearted, creatives behave in such an appalling way. It’s twisted my world, and, of course, ruined my career because I’m cancelled, I cannot work with them now.”
She is quick to stress, however, that this is not about her.
“It’s about the 4,000 young Israelis that are going to go on site. And please God it doesn’t happen, but if something does, I would never forgive myself for not saying something.”
I suggest that by her actions, she may well have saved lives.
“Even if it’s just one, it’s something.”
