Irish rap group Kneecap – which has drawn a storm of criticism, support, attention and legal action over the past half-year – continued to speak out about the war in Gaza during an afternoon set at the Øyafestivalen in Oslo, Norway, on Friday (Aug. 8).
Right before the trio of Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Próvaí took the stage, an English-language white-text-on-black-background message played on a video screen, accusing the Norwegian government of “enabling” the “genocide” against the Palestinian people via investments held in the county’s sovereign wealth fund (referenced as “oil pension fund” in the message). “Over 80,000 people have been murdered by Israel in 21 months,” the band’s message continued. “Free Palestine.” The message was greeted readily by a cheering audience. Most estimates (including those from health officials in the area) place the Palestinian death toll at more than 60,000. That number does not distinguish between civilians and Hamas militants. An estimated 18,500 of those killed were children.
While conflict between Israel and Palestinian territory has been ongoing for decades, the conflict escalated on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas militants entered Israel and killed 1,200 people, more than 800 of whom were civilians, and took 251 hostages, at least 40 of whom have been killed; around 50 hostages, both dead and alive, remain unreleased. Israel’s ensuing invasion of Gaza has killed an estimated 60,000 and led to an ongoing humanitarian crisis, with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced and facing starvation. Gaza health authorities have reported that almost 200 people have died of hunger since the conflict began and the United Nations has estimated that some 1300 were killed while seeking food, though Israel has frequently disputed the UN’s figures. Israel’s security cabinet recently approved a plan to take complete control of Gaza City and forcibly relocate at least 600,000 Palestinians, a move decried by many world leaders.
The Norwegian government’s connection to the war in Gaza is complicated. While Norway has broken with the United States and Israel by recognizing Palestine as a state, the Government Pension Fund of Norway – which invests surplus revenues from the country’s petroleum industry and has more than $1.9 trillion in assets – is under scrutiny after a recent piece by Aftenposten, Norway’s largest printed newspaper, reported that the sovereign wealth fund invested around $15.2 million in Bet Shemesh Engines Ltd., a jet engines parts manufacturer supplying the Israeli military, between 2023-2024. While Norway’s Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg has ruled out wholesale divestment of Israeli companies, the newspaper’s revelation spurred the government to launch a review of the sovereign wealth portfolio to ensure that it was not investing in Israeli companies contributing to the war in Gaza.
Halfway through the Belfast group’s hour-long performance, they offered up more detailed thoughts on Norway’s purported connection to the conflict. “I don’t have to lecture you people,” said Kneecap’s Mo Chara, wearing a keffiyeh. “I can understand there’s people here like, ‘All right, we get it, I’m sick of yous going on.’ I wish I didn’t have to talk about this, I wish I didn’t have to get on stage every gig and talk about this. The fact is, as long as we’re on stage and as long as nothing is changing, Kneecap will always use this platform and this stage to call out the genocide and the war criminals. I don’t need to lecture you people when your oil fund is being used to fund the genocide.” The majority of Kneecap’s massive crowd greeted his speech with cheers and applause; many waved Palestinian flags as he spoke. The Israeli government has flatly denied committing genocide against Palestinians, and the term remains hotly debated. Some say those who accuse Israel of genocide are motivated by antisemitism, though two Israel-based human rights organizations recently began adopting the word with regards to the war in Gaza.
Mo Chara gave a “quick shout-out” to Øyafestivalen for “standing by Kneecap” despite calls for its removal from the lineup, but added that he thinks “it’s a disgrace and a shame that KKR” – a global investment firm that owns Superstruct Entertainment, which runs Øyafestivalen, among many other international music festivals – “is behind all these festivals. No company investing in Israel while they commit war crimes should be involved in and taking part in music festivals,” he concluded, with the crowd voicing its agreement.
Criticism of KKR wasn’t limited to Kneecap’s set. Outside the festival entrance on Friday, a small but vocal group of protestors gathered to urge people to boycott Øyafestivalen over KKR. At a different stage, more than an hour later Kneecap wrapped, Irish rockers D.C. Fontaines flashed an onscreen message of “Free Palestine,” which was also greeted enthusiastically by the crowd.
Mo Chara is currently facing a terrorism charge from the British government over purportedly waving a Hezbollah flag at a concert in November 2024, where the group allegedly said “up Hezbollah, up Hamas.” Since then, the punk-leaning rap group released a statement declaring “we do not, and have never, supported Hamas or Hezbollah” and described video footage as “deliberately taken out of context.” Mo Chara alluded to the charges during the show, saying, “we love the English people, it’s the English government we don’t like.” Not long after Kneecap first hit the Øyafestivalen stage, they urged the audience to give them more of a response: “For f—k sake, we’re up in court on terrorism charges – give me a bit of energy.”
In July, Kneecap were banned from performing in Hungary over what a Hungarian politician described as “antisemitism and glorifying terror,” calling them a “national security threat.”
“The authoritarian government of Viktor Orban say we ‘pose a national security threat,’” the group wrote in a statement after the ban. “There is no legal basis for his actions, no member of Kneecap has ever been convicted of any crime in any country. We stand against all hate crimes and Kneecap champions love and solidarity as well as calling out injustices where we see it…. It’s clear this is political distraction and a further attempt to silence those who call out genocide against the Palestinian people.”
