The hugely influential Bristol group Massive Attack have long stood firm in support of many causes, including their support for the people of Palestine during Israel's campaign of genocide. Last year, Massive Attack joined forces with Fontaines D.C. and Young Fathers to release Ceasefire, a benefit EP raising money for Doctors Without Borders' emergency efforts in Gaza. Last month, Massive Attack were among the artists who signed a letter of support for the Belfast rap group Kneecap, as various authorities, including the British government, attempt to make an example out of them for their vocal Palestine support. Now, Massive Attack have threatened legal action against Hen Mazzig, the Zionist Israeli influencer and author who accused them of "incitement."
On Sunday, Hen Mazzig posted an 11-second clip of a Massive Attack live show, which uses footage of Yahya Sinwar, the late Hamas Political Bureau chairman who was killed last year. Mazzig wrote:
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 sympathize with Hamas is more than irresponsible -- it’s incitement.
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… pic.twitter.com/ffMS3UWGku
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) June 8, 2025
In a message posted on Twitter today, Massive Attack quote-tweeted Mazzig and said that they view Mazzig's tweet as "defamatory" and that Mazzig "must delete this post & issue an apology, or further action will follow."
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 view as defamatory, & has been passed to the band’s lawyers. @HenMazzig must delete this post & issue an apology, or… https://t.co/6yHTnpyCNQ
— Massive Attack (@MassiveAttackUK) June 9, 2025
On Instagram over the weekend, Massive Attack shared a statement about how the footage of political leaders that they use in live shows is not intended as an endorsement and that anyone who says otherwise is engaging in "deliberate context removal." Here's what they wrote:
Massive Attack categorically reject any suggestion that footage or reportage used as part of an artistic digital collage in our live show seeks to glorify or celebrate any featured subject.
To isolate a single section of reportage from the artistic context within which it sits -- a digital array that spans a wide variety of issues and themes (and explores how they are reported & presented via mainstream & social media) including war, insurgency, climate emergency, corporate tax avoidance, and the mineral exploitation of global south nations, and includes a multiplicity of highly controversial current and historical political figures -- is tantamount to a wilful device to create conditions for misinterpretation, or distortion.
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 into hell.
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 featured 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?
Unfortunately, the only reasonable conclusion is that this level of delierate context removal, and such a leap of misinterpretation has political motivations.
In a highly charged atmosphere, public figures including artists who consistently speak out against Israeli war crimes, apartheid and human rights abuses, and in defense 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.
Massive Attack also made a statement regarding their recent show at the Manchester venue Co-Op Live, writing that the venue launched a deal with Barclays just before the show "without any advance warning or notification." The group cites Barclays' ties to the fossil fuel industry and to the arms companies supplying the IDF, calling the company "a profoundly unethical corporate entity." Massive Attack announced that they would still go through with the show, but only after the venue agreed to remove "all physical and digital Barclays livery and logos" from the venue and website.
