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radioheadThe frontman has said that he will “absolutely not” perform israel Now, adding: “I wouldn’t want to live 5,000 miles closer to the Netanyahu regime.”
Thom Yorke made the comments in an interview with The Sunday Times Magazine ahead of the band’s first tour in seven years.
The group was embroiled in controversy in 2017 when they performed a show in Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park despite calls from activists and campaigners who said the show was an insult to the Palestinian people facing oppression in the country, with York reportedly telling the crowd: “A lot was said about it, but in the end we played some music.”
Asked about the 2017 event, the singer told the magazine: “I was at the hotel when a guy, who was obviously connected to the top, came up to me to thank me.
“Actually, it terrified me that the program was being hijacked. So I understood – sort of.
“At the time, I thought the program made sense, but as soon as I got there and the guy was like? Get me out.”
Asked if he would now play in Israel, he told the outlet: “Absolutely not. I wouldn’t want to go 5,000 miles away, close to the Netanyahu regime, but Jonny (Greenwood) has his roots there. So I understand.”
Yorke was heckled at a solo show in Melbourne last year about the war in Gaza, after which the singer responded: “Come here and say it… don’t stand there like a coward. Do you want to pee on everyone else’s night? Okay, you do that, see you later,” before leaving the stage.
In May, he released a statement on Instagram addressing the incident, saying: “Last year there were some people yelling at me from the dark… It really wasn’t the best moment to discuss the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza.
“Later, I was shocked that my alleged silence was somehow being taken as complicity.”
Guitarist Greenwood is married to Israeli artist Sharona Katan and has collaborated with Israeli-born rock musician Dudu Tassa for over a decade.
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He told The Sunday Times Magazine that he would “politely disagree” with his bandmate.
“I would argue that the government is more likely to use a boycott and say, ‘Everyone hates us – we should do what we want’ which is far more dangerous,” he said.
“This is madness. The only thing I’m ashamed of is that I’ve dragged Thom and others into this mess – but I’m not ashamed of working with Arab and Jewish musicians. I can’t apologize for that.”
Greenwood was criticized for performing in Tel Aviv with Tassa last year, with pro-Palestinian group Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) claiming the Radiohead musician had engaged in “shameful art-washing” by attending the event amid the Hamas–Israel war and the bombing of the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
He accused campaigners of trying to “silence” Israeli artists and said it “seems unprogressive to me”.
Earlier this year, he and Tassa were scheduled to perform in Bristol and London after releasing the record Jarak Karibak in 2023, but the shows were canceled due to “credible threats”.
The pair said at the time: “Venues and their innocent employees have received enough credible threats to conclude that it is not safe to proceed.”
The Palestinian Campaign for an Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACB), a member of the BDS movement, welcomed Giggs’ removal.
It said that the duo’s performance would have “blamed” the war in the Gaza Strip and said that Greenwood and Tassa’s claims were “baseless” and an attempt to divert attention from their ties to Israel’s cultural community.
Greenwood and Tassa said that their touring show included singers from Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait and Iraq, with “each member coming together because of a shared love of Arabic song, regardless of where they were all born”.
He said, “Forcing musicians not to perform and denying those who want to hear them the opportunity to do so is automatically a form of censorship and silencing.”
This summer, BDS called for a boycott of Radiohead concerts “because of Jonny Greenwood’s crossing of our peaceful picket line during Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza”.
The band’s drummer Philip Selway said in an interview with The Sunday Times Magazine: “What BDS is asking of us is impossible.
“They want us to distance ourselves from Johnny, but that would mean the end of the band and Johnny is coming from a very principled place. But it’s strange to be ostracized by artists with whom we generally feel quite connected.”
Guitarist Ed O’Brien, who has shown support for the Free Palestine movement, said of the band’s 2017 performance in Tel Aviv: “We should have played Ramallah in the West Bank, too.”
The band will perform 20 shows in five European cities on their upcoming tour and will perform at London’s O2 on 21, 22, 24 and 25 November.