Radiohead is about to embark on their first tour in seven years, but that doesn’t mean each member of the five piece unit is on the same page about everything. In fact, when it comes to the Israel-Hamas war, a topic that has landed the band in a lot of hot water, they barely see eye-to-eye at all. The group got into it in a new interview with The Sunday Times, which addressed their controversial decision to play a show in Tel Aviv in 2017. The concert drew heavy backlash from the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, as well as director Ken Loach and Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, among others. There was at least one person who appreciated the booking, though. “I was in the hotel,” Yorke recalled, “when some guy, clearly connected high up, approaches me to thank me. It horrified me, truly, that the gig was being hijacked. So I get it—sort of. At the time I thought the gig made sense, but as soon as I got there and that guy came up? Get me the fuck out.”
Yorke defended the concert at the time, writing, “Playing in a country isn’t the same as endorsing its government… We don’t endorse [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu any more than Trump, but we still play in America.” Now, he says he would “absolutely not” play a show in Israel. “I wouldn’t want to be 5,000 miles anywhere near the Netanyahu regime but Jonny [Greenwood, his Radiohead bandmate] has roots there. So I get it.” (The Sunday Times notes that this interview was conducted before October’s ceasefire agreement.)
Greenwood does indeed have roots in Israel. The guitarist is married to Israeli artist Sharona Katan and has long collaborated with Israeli musician Dudu Tassa. “I would also politely disagree with Thom,” Greenwood, who was interviewed at the same time as the singer, opined. “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.” Greenwood has no intent to stop collaborating with Israeli artists. In fact, he will release an album with Israeli and other Middle Eastern musicians, which he “feel[s] frightened to admit… Yet that feels progressive to me—booing at a concert does not strike me as brave or progressive.” 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.”
While the two disagree on where to book gigs, they seem to be aligned in their frustration with all of this backlash. Last year, Yorke was called out during a solo show for his “silence” on the war, leading him to storm off stage. He addressed the incident months later in a lengthy statement, writing that he “remained in shock that my supposed silence was somehow being taken as complicity.” Yet the backlash continued. “A few times recently I’ve had ‘Free Palestine!’ shouted at me on the street,” he recalled, including from a man whose “shtick was, ‘You have a platform, a duty and must distance yourself from Jonny.’ But I said, ‘You and me, standing on the street in London, shouting at each other? Well, the true criminals, who should be in front of the ICC [International Criminal Court], are laughing at us squabbling among ourselves in the public realm and on social media—while they just carry on with impunity, murdering people.’… It’s a purity test, low-level Arthur Miller witch-hunt. I utterly respect the dismay but it’s very odd to be on the receiving end.”
“This wakes me up at night,” he added. “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. 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.” Greenwood also chimed in that this behavior was “the embodiment of the left… The left look for traitors, the right for converts and it’s depressing that we are the closest they can get.”
The other three members of the band, who The Sunday Times interviewed separately from Yorke and Greenwood, had their own opinions on the matter. Guitarist Ed O’Brien simply said of the Tel Aviv gig, “We should have played Ramallah in the West Bank as well.” Regarding his bandmates’ response to the conflict, he said, “I am not going to judge anybody… 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.” For drummer Philip Selway, “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.” Jonny’s brother Colin merely recalled a gig the band played the night of September 11, 2001. People in the crowd were shouting “Say something!” the bassist said, before Yorke eventually responded, “What do you want me to say?”
