A few days after starting their European tour in Madrid, Radiohead gave an interview to The Times, which was echoed by several media outlets such as RTE and NME.
Apart from commenting that they are considering dozens of songs for their tour, they all talk about their controversial position on Israel, which has been pointed out by many of their followers as “ambiguous.” Thom Yorke is no longer ambiguous in this interview, because when asked if he would play in this country again, he is very clear: “I wouldn’t want to play 5,000 miles from the Netanyahu regime.” An extreme statement, taking into account that the United Kingdom and Israel are more than 5,000 kilometers apart.
Jonny Greenwood, who has an Israeli girlfriend, claims to differ with Thom Yorke. He emphasizes that he has attended demonstrations against the Netanyahu regime, but does not believe in the boycott: “I would say that the government would use the boycott to say ‘everyone hates us and that is why we have to do what we want.’ Which is more dangerous. He assures that he is developing a project with Jewish and Middle Eastern musicians and says: «It’s crazy. The only thing I’m ashamed of is that I led Thom and the others into this chaos. But I am not ashamed of having worked with Arab and Jewish musicians. “I’m not going to apologize for that.”
The band comments on how controversial their performance in this country was in 2017 and how uncomfortable the group’s singer felt when certain very powerful people thanked him for that concert, because only then did he realize how it was being used politically. Yorke discusses the incident he experienced at a solo concert in which someone yelled something at him about Gaza and how people understood his silence “as an accomplice.” Thom goes further, recounting being shouted “Free Palestine” in the street, and talking about how he feels about it:
«Lately they have shouted at me several times “Free Palestine!” on the street I responded to a guy. What he was saying was: “You have a platform, a duty, and you must distance yourself from Jonny.” And I said, “You and me, standing on the street in London, yelling at each other? Meanwhile, the real criminals, who should be before an International Court, laugh at the fact that we argue among ourselves, in public and on social networks: they continue to murder with impunity.
It is drummer Philip Selway who responds to the boycott request from the pro-Palestinian organization BDS, which considers that Greenwood, as a member of Radiohead, whitewashes Israel by taking an equidistant position: “What they are asking of us is impossible. They want us to distance ourselves from Jonny and that would mean the end of the group. Jonny is very principled. But it is strange that we are being marginalized by artists to whom we felt close.”
As for guitarist Ed O’Brien, the most outspoken in his support of the Free Palestine movement, he has stated that, when the group played in Tel Aviv in 2017, they should have added a date in Ramallah.
