Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke has reignited controversy over the band’s relationship with Israel, declaring in an interview that he would “absolutely not” perform in the country today, saying, “I wouldn’t want to be 5,000 miles anywhere near the Netanyahu regime.”
Yorke made the remarks to The Sunday Times magazine ahead of Radiohead’s first tour in seven years and prior to the recent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. The comments have drawn renewed attention to the band’s 2017 performance in Tel Aviv, which was met with fierce criticism from anti-Israel activists.
Before that concert, 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.”
Yorke fired back at the boycott calls, calling them “an extraordinary waste of energy”. The band went ahead with the Tel Aviv show.
Reflecting on the 2017 concert, Yorke told The Sunday Times he was approached in his hotel by someone “clearly connected high up” who thanked him for the performance.
Asked if he would return to perform in Israel, Yorke responded: “Absolutely not. I wouldn’t want to be 5,000 miles anywhere near the Netanyahu regime but Jonny (Greenwood) has roots there. So I get it.”
Yorke was heckled at a solo concert in Melbourne last year over the war in Gaza. He responded angrily before walking off stage. In May, he addressed the incident on Instagram, saying it “didn’t really seem like the best moment to discuss the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza,” and expressed shock that his silence was interpreted as complicity.
Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood, who is married to Israeli artist Sharona Katan and has long collaborated with Israeli musician Dudu Tassa, offered a different perspective. “I would argue that the government is more likely to use a boycott and say, ‘Everyone hates us - we should do exactly what we want’ which is far more dangerous,” he said. “I’m not ashamed of working with Arab and Jewish musicians. I can’t apologize for that.”
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.
In May of this year, two planned UK performances by Greenwood and Tassa were canceled, with BDS taking credit for causing the cancellations.
Greenwood and Tassa defended their project, which features artists from across the Arab world, saying it was driven by a shared love of Arabic music. “Forcing musicians not to perform and denying people who want to hear them an opportunity to do so is self-evidently a method of censorship and silencing,” they said.