Thom Yorke has said Radiohead will “absolutely not” return to Israel and he “wouldn’t want to be 5,000 miles anywhere near the Netanyahu regime”.
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In 2017, the band encountered a backlash when they played a show in Tel Aviv, Israel despite protests urging them to cancel the gig from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, as well as criticism from Roger Waters, Thurston Moore, Young Fathers and others.
Last year, Yorke also clashed with a protester during a solo show in Melbourne, arguing with an individual from the crowd and storming off stage, before later issuing a lengthy statement explaining his decision.
At the time he also said: “I think [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and his crew of extremists are totally out of control and need to be stopped, and that the international community should put all the pressure it can on them to cease.”
Speaking in a new interview with The Sunday Times, when asked whether he would play in Israel with Radiohead again, he replied: “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.”
When Radiohead announced their first shows in over seven years in September, the BDS argued that the band’s “complicit silence” and support of Israeli performers during the “genocide against Palestinians in Gaza” should lead to a boycott of the shows.
Sharing his thoughts on the matter, Yorke said: “This wakes me up at night.”
“They’re telling me what it is that I’ve done with my life, and what I should do next, and that what I think is meaningless,” he added. “People want to take what I’ve done that means so much to millions of people and wipe me out. But this is not theirs to take from me – and I don’t consider I’m a bad person.”
Jonny Greenwood, meanwhile, has come in for criticism for making records with Israeli musician Dudu Tassa, and saw two UK gigs with Tassa cancelled earlier this year after protesters called for a boycott. Greenwood, who is married to an Israeli artist, also played with Tassa in Tel Aviv last year.
Greenwood described the backlash as “the embodiment of the left”, adding: “The left look for traitors, the right for converts and it’s depressing that we are the closest they can get.”
Revealing that he is currently working on a record with Israeli and Middle Eastern musicians, he continued: “And it’s nuts I feel frightened to admit that. Yet that feels progressive to me – booing at a concert does not strike me as brave or progressive.”
He went on: “I spend a lot of time there with family and cannot just say, ‘I’m not making music with you fuckers because of the government.’ It makes no sense to me. I have no loyalty – or respect, obviously – to their government, but I have both for the artists born there.”
On the subject of whether he would play in Israel again he said: “I would also politely disagree with Thom. 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.”
“It’s nuts,” he added. “The only thing that I’m ashamed of is that I’ve dragged Thom and the others into this mess – but I’m not ashamed of working with Arab and Jewish musicians. I can’t apologise for that.”
Guitarist Ed O’Brien, meanwhile, had his say on the issue, claiming: “We should have played Ramallah in the West Bank as well.”
“I am not going to judge anybody,” he said in reference to his bandmates’ stances. “But the brutal truth is that, while we were once all tight, we haven’t really spoken to one another much – and that’s OK.”
Drummer Philip Selway added: “What BDS are asking of us is impossible. They want us to distance ourselves from Jonny, but that would mean the end of the band and Jonny is coming from a very principled place. But it’s odd to be ostracised by artists we generally felt quite aligned to.”
Elsewhere in the interview, they confirmed that their forthcoming shows will be played in the round, and they revealed that they have whittled down their back catalogue to a shortlist of approximately 65 tracks, which Greenwood said they are “all frantically learning”.
They also revealed whether fans can expect new material from the band after they play their UK and European dates.
Radiohead are returning to the stage for the first time in over seven years in the coming weeks, with four-night residencies in each of Madrid, Bologna, London, Copenhagen and Berlin set to take place between November 4 and December 12. All of the tickets sold out very quickly.