The British rock band Radiohead, scheduled to perform next week in Tel Aviv, is a tough act to follow, but an even tougher act to mess with. Front man Thomas Yorke in particular is strong enough to stand up for the group’s beliefs, stubborn enough not to buckle under massive pressure from threats by the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions campaign against Israel, and sophisticated enough to send back the message that really, music is not about hate.
The band’s members have needed all of that faith and more over these past few months, with the BDS movement ratcheting up the pressure as the date for the group’s performance in Israel drawing ever closer.
“Playing in a country isn’t the same as endorsing its government,” Yorke tweeted on Tuesday. “We’ve played in Israel for over 20 years through a succession of governments, some more liberal than others. As we have in America.”
Radiohead has, in fact, played in Israel a total of eight times, although the last concert was held in 2000.
“We don’t endorse [Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu any more than [U.S. President Donald] Trump, but we still play in America,” Yorke wrote.
“Music, art and academia is about crossing borders, not building them,” his statement explained, “about open minds, not closed ones, about shared humanity, dialogue and freedom of expression.
“I hope that makes it clear, Ken.”
Yorke posted the statement in response to one from British filmmaker Ken Loach, who has called over and over, ad nauseum, for a cultural boycott of the Jewish State. “Radiohead need to decide if they stand with the oppressed or the oppressor. The choice is simple,” wrote Loach in an open letter on Tuesday, accusing the band of ignoring “human rights violations” and inspiring Yorke finally to post the full statement.
The controversy began with a letter to the band from ‘Artists for Palestine,’ asking the group to reconsider the decision to perform in a country “where a system of apartheid has been imposed on the Palestinian people.”
Yorke’s response to that letter came in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine. In addition to pointing out that the BDS movement engages in black-and-white dialogue, York noted that the group’s guitarist, Jonny Greenwood, is married to “an Arab Jew” and has, as he put it, “both Palestinian and Israeli friends.” He told the magazine, “They talk down to us and I just find it mind-boggling that they think they have the right to do that. It’s extraordinary.”
The band had to put up with more garbage last week when playing in Glasgow, with protesters in the crowd raising Palestinian Authority flags during the band’s headline set, and waving signs, “Radiohead #Cancel TelAviv.”