Thom Yorke has done us all a great service by exposing how unhinged, intolerant and, frankly, bigoted much of the supposedly ‘pro-Palestine’ set is.
The Radiohead frontman and bandmate Jonny Greenwood have for years now been locked in a bitter beef with Israelophobic fans and fellow musicians, due to their dogged refusal to treat Israelis like moral lepers and insistence on still playing to – and with – them.
In 2017, Radiohead ploughed ahead with a big tour show in Tel Aviv, despite outrage from all the usual suspects. Roger Waters even called Yorke a ‘prick’, which I suppose would only really sting if you subscribed to the old adage ‘it takes one to know one’.
One suspect his critics aren’t opposed to this war – or even really in favour of Palestine
Yorke’s perfectly rational, liberal argument – ‘we don’t endorse Netanyahu any more than Trump, but we still play in America’ – fell on deaf ears among those who see Israelis as uniquely, collectively, responsible for the actions of their political leaders.
He walked off stage in Melbourne last October, after being heckled by an activist, demanding he ‘condemn the Israeli genocide of Gaza’. Now, Yorke has published a thoughtful statement on Instagram, responding to the incident and laying out his thinking on this issue.
His ‘silence’ isn’t complicity with anything, Yorke says. He’d just rather ‘not trivialise’ the suffering of those on both sides of the conflict by uttering ‘a few words’. He condemns ‘social-media witch-hunts’ and activists who are ‘pressurising artists and whoever they feel like that week to make statements’ about Israel and Palestine, because it can only lead to ‘fear and over-simplification of what are complex problems’. (If only more musicians – or ageing football pundits – felt the same way.)
Still, he also slams ‘Netanyahu and his crew of extremists’, insisting ‘the international community should put all the pressure it can on them to cease’. And he slams Hamas, for choosing to ‘hide behind the suffering of its people’, adding: ‘[T]he unquestioning Free Palestine refrain that surrounds us all does not answer the simple question of why the hostages have still not all been returned.’
If the pro-Palestine movement were actually the peaceniks they pose as, this statement would have been met with a collective shrug. But for daring to say the Middle East’s most intractable conflict is actually quite complicated, and gently reminding people of Hamas’s murder of Jews, hostage-taking and use of human shields, he’s been slammed across social media.
One suspect his critics aren’t opposed to this war – or even really in favour of Palestine. They’re just opposed to the existence of Israel and are remarkably, tetchily, sensitive to any admission of Israeli Jewish suffering.
Indeed, it’s not an exaggeration to say that the anti-Israel movement struggles even to see Israelis as actual human beings. What else could explain their insistence on singling Israelis out and treating them differently to the citizens of any other nation?
When Erdogan bombs the Kurds, Turkish artists aren’t picketed and bands aren’t hounded out of playing in Istanbul. And yet Greenwood recently had two UK shows with collaborator Dudu Tassa cancelled, after the venues were threatened by activists. Tassa’s only crime, you’ll have guessed, is being an Israeli Jew. Remind me who the progressives are here again?
So let’s give it up for Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood – two islands of reason and genuine anti-racism in a sea of music-industry Israelophobia. Telling Roger Waters and Co to do one is their greatest gift to culture since OK Computer. Here’s to more kicking against the pricks.
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