RADIOHEAD’S LEAD SINGER Thom Yorke has said he would not play a concert in Israel again, but the band’s lead guitarist Jonny Greenwood says he would. 

The five band members sat down for an interview with The Sunday Times this weekend ahead of their comeback tour and their 2017 gig in Tel Aviv came up in the context of Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip in Palestine, which killed more than 68,000 people and reduced the territory to rubble. 

Yorke was obviously unhappy with the way some people have criticised him for not speaking out more about Israel’s actions in Gaza. 

“This wakes me up at night,” said Yorke, who has been outspoken on various political issues in the past, most prominently the climate crisis. 

“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.”

Yorke said that fans shouting “Free Palestine” at him at gigs or on the street was “an expression of impotency”. 

“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.”

But when he was asked by The Times if he would play another concert in Israel, he said: “Absolutely not. I wouldn’t want to be 5,000 miles anywhere near the (Benjamin) Netanyahu regime but Jonny (Greenwood) has roots there. So I get it.”

“A few times recently I’ve had ‘Free Palestine!’ shouted at me on the street. I talked to a guy. His 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.’” 

Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Greenwood, who is married to Israeli artist Sharona Katan, said that this kind of intervention from people who criticise the members of the band 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.

“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.”

Greenwood has worked for years with musicians from Israel and other countries in the region, and said he is opposed to the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. 

“Look, I have been to antigovernment protests in Israel and you cannot move for all the ‘F*** Ben-Gvir’ stickers.” (Itamar Ben-Gvir is Israel’s far-right minister for national security.) 

“I spend a lot of time there with family and cannot just say, ‘I’m not making music with you f***ers 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.”

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