Massive Attack have threatened legal action against an Israeli influencer and author after being accused of “incitement” for displaying footage of late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar on a screen during a concert.
The group were performing at Manchester’s Co-op Live arena when Sinwar, who was killed by Israeli troops last year, appeared on screen during a montage featuring other world leaders such as Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
This lead to Hen Mazzig, an Israeli writer and influencer, taking to social media where he directly called out the trip-hop veterans and accused them of “celebrating” the former Hamas leader.
Mazzig shared an 11-second clip from the live show and captioned it with: “Why is the self proclaimed ‘pro peace’ band @MassiveAttackUK screening footage of Yahya Sinwar during their concert? Sinwar masterminded the slaughter of innocents at a music festival, yet they’re celebrating him at a similar event.
“If you’re booking the UK’s largest arena, you should care a lot more about the message you’re spreading. Encouraging 23,000+ people to sympathise with Hamas is more than irresponsible – it’s incitement.”
As expected Massive Attack did not take this claim lightly and responded within hours, warning Mazzig to delete the post or risk legal action: “@hearnimator must delete the original post & issue an apology or further action will follow.”
The post has since been deleted.
For obvious, ethical reasons relating to its owner, Massive Attack do not use ‘X’. However, no email contact is presented for the author of this post, which we consider defamatory, & has been passed to the band’s lawyers. @hearnimator must delete the original post & issue an… https://t.co/1TlKO3TBou
— Massive Attack (@MassiveAttackUK) June 9, 2025
The Bristol band did not stop there though. As a group known for their activism and especially their support for Palestine – they have boycotted performing in Israel since 1999 – Robert Del Naja and co issued a further statement, calling out their critics for “deliberate context removal”.
The statement explained in detail what was intended by the footage being played at their Manchester show, saying: “In the specific case of the film loop that includes reportage of Yahya Sinwar, the entire sequence interplays with scenes from Jean Cocteau’s film Orpheus, creating both a placement and implicit tone of horrified lament; that an individual of power can take people down to hell.”
They continued: “It would be bizarre (and perhaps revealing) that any observer of the live show films would solely home in on the Sinwar/IDF footage and completely overlook all other controversial figures feature in the reportage loops.
“Would ‘x’ observer suggest we sought to glorify Vladimir Putin, who appears in four loops? Or Donald Trump who appears in several? Or J Edgar Hoover? Or indeed the IDF soldiers who feature in the exact same location reportage as the Yahya Sinwar footage cited by various social media accounts?”
Massive Attack are not the first group to be ‘targeted’ for showing their support for Palestine. Irish rap trio Kneecap and their controversies have been extensively talked about since they called for a “Free Palestine” at Coachella.
The Bristol group ended their statement with a message relating to Kneecap’s recent ordeals, saying: “In a highly charged atmosphere, public figures including artists who consistently speak out against Israeli war crimes, apartheid and human rights abuses, and in defence of the Palestinian people are subjected to determined and spurious attempts to discredit us, as a deterrent to us from speaking out.
“These spurious attempts will always fail.”
Even before taking to stage in Manchester, the show was already marred in controversy. The recent sponsoring of the venue by Barclays led to Massive Attack almost cancelling the gig, check out mxdwn coverage of what transpired here.
