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BDS petition calls on Radiohead to cancel scheduled Tel Aviv concert

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April 26, 2017
Thom-YorkeThom Yorke performing with Radiohead in Sydney, Australia, Nov. 1. Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images

Anti-Israel activists are urging British rock band Radiohead to cancel its July 19 concert in Tel Aviv. For now, however, its performance at Park Hayarkon in Tel Aviv remains listed on the group’s official website, wasteheadquarters.com.

“We applaud Radiohead for joining their peers and using their art as a way to bring people together,” Creative Community for Peace (CCFP) said in an April 25 statement, issued in response to the publication of an April 24 petition urging Israel to cancel the performance.

Signatories to the open letter include Roger Waters, former member of Pink Floyd, who has a history of criticizing Israel, Tunde Adibimpe of New York band TV on the Radio and nearly 50 others.

Artists for Palestine UK, a network of artists that support a cultural boycott of Israel, addresses Radiohead members Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Colin Greenwood, Ed O’Brien and Philip Selway in its letter calling for the cancellation.

Radiohead, which this month headlined the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in support of its latest album, “A Moon Shaped Pool,” has had ties to Israel ever since its 1993 song, “Creep,” became popular on Israeli army radio, according to Tablet Magazine. The article includes an audio recording of the band’s performance in Israel. Crowd members discuss the set list in Hebrew in-between songs. It’s a cool little historical pop culture artifact.

The band’s ties to Israel don’t end there. It recently completed a U.S. tour featuring Israel-based cross-cultural Jewish-Arabic project Dudu Tassa and the Kuwaitis as its opening act.

Nevertheless, those who signed the letter calling for the quintet to “think again” before playing Israel dismissed the band’s collaboration with Jewish-Arabic musicians as irrelevant, which reminds one of the controversy surrounding Paul Simon when he visited South Africa to brainstorm ideas for the album that eventually became “Graceland.”

“You may think that sharing the bill with Israeli musicians Dudu Tassa & the Kuwaitis, who play Jewish-Arabic music, will make everything OK.  It won’t, any more than ‘mixed’ performances in South Africa brought closer the end of the apartheid regime,” the letter says. “Please do what artists did in South Africa’s era of oppression: stay away, until apartheid is over.”

CCFP says the letter’s claims against Israel are “inaccurate.”

“Unfortunately, their letter is filled with inaccurate accusations against Israel, including false claims of ‘apartheid’ and ‘genocide.’ Trying to appeal to artists’ natural empathy for the downtrodden, the boycott movement falsely characterizes the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement as a movement seeking peace and justice, and drives the prospect of peace further away,” the CCFP statement says.

Radiohead ascended to cultural prominence in the 1990s. Its albums “The Bends,” “OK Computer” and, a personal favorite, “Kid A,” released in 2000, underscore the band’s intelligent, if impenetrable, lyrics and innovative soundscapes. Ironically, the band has drawn comparisons to Waters’ Pink Floyd.

CCFP has previously weighed in on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel targeting bands slated to play there. Rod Stewart, scheduled to perform in Tel Aviv on June 14, and Aerosmith, scheduled to perform May 17, were recently targeted by activists who support boycotting Israel, CCFP says.

A March 28 Jerusalem Post article says that the BDS influence on rock and pop acts booked in Israel is “waning.” The proof is Israel concert promoters are currently preparing for Israel’s “busiest concert season in history,” CCFP says. Radiohead, Stewart, Aerosmith and even pop queen Britney Spears are booked at Hayarkon Park. Spears is scheduled to perform there July 3.

 

 

 

 

 

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