Two planned UK performances by Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead and Israeli musician Dudu Tassa have been canceled, with no official statement issued by the venues or artists, the UK Jewish News reported on Sunday.
The concerts, scheduled for June at the Beacon in Bristol and Hackney Church in London, were part of a longstanding artistic collaboration between Greenwood and Tassa that began over a decade ago.
While the reason for the cancellations has not been disclosed, the events had been targeted by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), which described the scheduled performances as efforts to whitewash what it called the “genocide” in Gaza and the “underlying settler-colonial apartheid regime.”
“We reiterate our call for all venues to refuse to program this complicit event that can only artwash genocide,” the movement wrote in a post on X.
Greenwood and Tassa have been collaborating and releasing music since 2008 and have continued to perform together despite pressure on Greenwood to cancel his shows with Tassa.
Last June, Greenwood refused pressure from BDS to cancel his tour with Tassa, and criticized their call as “unprogressive”.
Responding to the boycott calls, Greenwood wrote on X, “I think an artistic project that combines Arab and Jewish musicians is worthwhile. And one that reminds everyone that the Jewish cultural roots in countries like Iraq and Yemen go back for thousands of years, is also important.”
“Others choose to believe this kind of project is unjustifiable and are urging the silence of this – or any – artistic effort made by Israeli Jews. But I can’t join that call: The silencing of Israeli filmmakers/musicians/dancers when their work tours abroad – especially when it’s at the urging of their fellow western filmmakers/musicians/artists – feels unprogressive to me, not least because it’s these people that are invariably the most progressive members of any society,” he added.
The guitarist pointed out that Tassa’s grandfather was perhaps the best-known Iraqi composer, and was one of the legendary Al Kuwaity brothers whose songs are still featured on Arab-wide radio stations, “though sadly their heritage as Jews is never mentioned any longer,” he said.
Greenwood also wrote, “No art is as 'important' as stopping all the death and suffering around us. How can it be? But doing nothing seems a worse option. And silencing Israeli artists for being born Jewish in Israel doesn't seem like any way to reach an understanding between the two sides of this apparently endless conflict."
BDS has long urged musicians to call off shows in Israel or cancel collaborations with Israeli artists. While a number of politically active musicians have heeded to the pressure, a range of others have rejected the boycott call.
In 2017, before a Radiohead concert in Tel Aviv, dozens of artists, including notorious anti-Israel activist Roger Waters, sent a letter to the band urging its to cancel the concert in order to “pressure Israel to end its violation of basic rights and international law.”
Thom Yorke, the band’s frontman, fired back at the boycott calls, calling them “an extraordinary waste of energy”. The band went ahead with the Tel Aviv show.