Yorke said: “Playing in a country isn’t the same as endorsing the government. We’ve played in Israel for over 20 years through a succession of governments, some more liberal than others. As we have in America. We don’t endorse Netanyahu any more than Trump, but we still play in America.”
Yorke said in a statement in 2017 before a show in Tel Aviv.
You kind of left out the most important part. I don’t think Israel’s current genocide is in anyway equivalent to a trump presidency, the comment sounds bloody ignorant without the context.
That being said, there’s no need to start heckling about it when the guy hasn’t been there since 2017. I will however judge harshly any artist that goes there after what has happened in the last year. Israel deserves a boycott.
If we’re gonna do that, boycott every artist that plays in the u.s. why do you guys like to act like your hands are clean while pointing your finger at others? Your country fucked up mine in the very recent past and not a single but of responsibility has yet to be taken, you don’t get to moralize to the rest of the world
I applaud your pushback. Until Americans are denied travel visas we wont examine our own actions, and our slow and steady creep toward open fascism will continue.
With our too big ocean borders and large military, America cant be confronted militarily, it has to be dipllomatically. Money is the only thing capitalism values. I also think a new UN should be started without veto authority by the ‘great powers’. China and Russia are no better and also need containment.
Americans don’t travel enough to give a shit about travel visas. The people who’d be most hurt by limiting those would be the people most likely to have some sense that other countries even exist at all other than as places to bomb or exploit for cheap labor.
That’d be a fair excuse for what they’ve done if they were totally ignorant of what Israel’s government has done, but they’ve been told by Desmond Tutu and a bunch of other people. They had a fully informed opportunity to pick their side and they picked it, so they really shouldn’t be surprised when this keeps happening to them.
Not to sound dumb but do you have a list of places they can play? I’m not super informed and would like to be. Specifically what places can they play that a quick Google won’t invalidate with historic or current atrocities?
Doesn’t seem particularly confusing to me, Thurston Moore figured it out.
From the above article,
In a separate statement attached to the letter, Thurston Moore said: “If any concerned, humanitarian-conscious activists employ a boycott to protest brutal injustice in their country and request artists and scholars to refrain from working and/or being promoted as supportive of the normalization of that country—then I choose NOT to cross that line and suggest to all to not be complicit. It is a small sacrifice in respect to those who struggle in honourable opposition to state-sponsored fascism.”
Forgive me again. I’m dumb. Shouldn’t we boycott any country and all of it’s citizens who purchase things made in China? What with the whole Uyghurs thing going on right now? Also what about nations that give humanitarian aid to Afghanistan? BRICS nations and basically the whole West are all tangentially connected to current ongoing atrocities as are the countries that willfully receive aid from those nations. So just so I know who to support. What countries are clean enough for Radio Head to play there?
You are adding degrees of indirection that don’t apply, the playing dumb act is one thing but all you can say with your reasoning is they shouldn’t play in Afghanistan or China which people might agree with.
Nobody’s saying they shouldn’t play in Germany because Germany supports Israel.
I’m using the same stupid all or nothing logic the people I replied to are using. If playing a concert in Israel means you support Israel then purchasing items or items with components made in China means you support China. If you elect a representative that votes to send aid to the afghans then you support Al Qaeda. It sounds stupid because it is. Just like saying Radio Head supports the Israeli government and it’s actions by playing a concert there is stupid.
The open letter to them that was signed by artists from Sonic Youth, TV on the Radio, and a bunch of other artists and activists says it better than I could,
We understand you’ve been approached already by Palestinian campaigners. They’ve asked you to respect their call for a cultural boycott of Israel, and you’ve turned them down. Since Radiohead campaigns for freedom for the Tibetans, we’re wondering why you’d turn down a request to stand up for another people under foreign occupation. And since Radiohead fronted a gig for the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we’re wondering why you’d ignore a call to stand against the denial of those rights when it comes to the Palestinians. **
Radiohead once issued a statement saying: ‘Without the work of organisations like Amnesty International, the Universal Declaration would be mere rhetoric’. You’ve clearly read Amnesty’s reports, so you’ll know that Israel denies freedom to the Palestinians under occupation, who can’t live where they want, can’t travel as they please, who get detained (and often tortured) without charge or trial, and can’t even use Facebook without surveillance, censorship and arrest.
In asking you not to perform in Israel, Palestinians have appealed to you to take one small step to help pressure Israel to end its violation of basic rights and international law. Surely if making a stand against the politics of division, of discrimination and of hate means anything at all, it means standing against it everywhere – and that has to include what happens to Palestinians every day.
Otherwise the rest is, to use your words, ‘mere rhetoric’.
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. Please do what artists did in South Africa’s era of oppression: stay away, until apartheid is over.
Why should fans be punished for a gov that doesnt listen?
Their government is, to a large extent, listening. A lot of the nonsense we’ve seen this last year was Netanyahu trying to cling to power, but most of it is Israeli popular will. They want the genocide; some of them just don’t want to sacrifice the hostages to make it happen.
When asked to assess their country’s military response against Hamas in Gaza, about four-in-ten Israelis say it has been about right. Another 34% say it has not gone far enough, while 19% say it has gone too far.
Israeli Arabs are much more critical of the military response, with 74% saying it has gone too far. Only 4% of Israeli Jews agree.
As of mid sept, polls show 41% of them do. Not a majority but far too much when it’s genocide and ethnic cleansing we are talking about.
If 2/5ths of your population want to keep indiscriminately killing innocent men, women and children, it’s up to the other 3/5ths to tell them to sit down and teach them why they suck. It’s not up to the rest of the world to go “we’ll it’s not a majority, I guess as long as only 40% of them are drooling at the thought of dead children, a boycott would be unfair.”
According to a random poll I just looked up, 29% of Americans “somewhat care” if their politicians support genocide. Maybe we should pressure them to care more and join the 19% that care a lot.
Boycott America until people take it seriously and stop funding them.
I’m (truly) not sure if this reasoning applies to the people of Israel at large. To be fair, the same can increasingly be said of Americans who continue to support Republicans as they go mask off.
I’ve thought about if bands started to boycott red states. I live in a red state, and any band that might boycott would also have more liberal fans. So they would really be hurting those that already agree with them.
But also, fuck our government and the 2/3 of people that agree with those crazy fucks.
Commonsense is so refreshing.You kind of left out the most important part. I don’t think Israel’s current genocide is in anyway equivalent to a trump presidency, the comment sounds bloody ignorant without the context.
That being said, there’s no need to start heckling about it when the guy hasn’t been there since 2017. I will however judge harshly any artist that goes there after what has happened in the last year. Israel deserves a boycott.
If we’re gonna do that, boycott every artist that plays in the u.s. why do you guys like to act like your hands are clean while pointing your finger at others? Your country fucked up mine in the very recent past and not a single but of responsibility has yet to be taken, you don’t get to moralize to the rest of the world
I wish I could boycott my own country. I’m very aware of the terrible things that have been done and I will be the first to draw attention to them.
That being said, staying silent about genocide just adds to the blood, it doesn’t take it away.
I applaud your pushback. Until Americans are denied travel visas we wont examine our own actions, and our slow and steady creep toward open fascism will continue.
With our too big ocean borders and large military, America cant be confronted militarily, it has to be dipllomatically. Money is the only thing capitalism values. I also think a new UN should be started without veto authority by the ‘great powers’. China and Russia are no better and also need containment.
Americans don’t travel enough to give a shit about travel visas. The people who’d be most hurt by limiting those would be the people most likely to have some sense that other countries even exist at all other than as places to bomb or exploit for cheap labor.
Of course we do, ‘cause nukes. /s
If that were true he wouldnt have lost his mind about a single protestor. Crowds are rowdy, thats just life.
They’d probably play in Nazi Germany too
Godwin’s Law at work.
Committing a genocide makes for a good comparison to the nazis.
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That’d be a fair excuse for what they’ve done if they were totally ignorant of what Israel’s government has done, but they’ve been told by Desmond Tutu and a bunch of other people. They had a fully informed opportunity to pick their side and they picked it, so they really shouldn’t be surprised when this keeps happening to them.
Not to sound dumb but do you have a list of places they can play? I’m not super informed and would like to be. Specifically what places can they play that a quick Google won’t invalidate with historic or current atrocities?
They can only play on carnival cruises
Doesn’t seem particularly confusing to me, Thurston Moore figured it out.
From the above article,
Historic atrocities are one thing, an ongoing genocide is another.
Forgive me again. I’m dumb. Shouldn’t we boycott any country and all of it’s citizens who purchase things made in China? What with the whole Uyghurs thing going on right now? Also what about nations that give humanitarian aid to Afghanistan? BRICS nations and basically the whole West are all tangentially connected to current ongoing atrocities as are the countries that willfully receive aid from those nations. So just so I know who to support. What countries are clean enough for Radio Head to play there?
You are adding degrees of indirection that don’t apply, the playing dumb act is one thing but all you can say with your reasoning is they shouldn’t play in Afghanistan or China which people might agree with.
Nobody’s saying they shouldn’t play in Germany because Germany supports Israel.
I’m using the same stupid all or nothing logic the people I replied to are using. If playing a concert in Israel means you support Israel then purchasing items or items with components made in China means you support China. If you elect a representative that votes to send aid to the afghans then you support Al Qaeda. It sounds stupid because it is. Just like saying Radio Head supports the Israeli government and it’s actions by playing a concert there is stupid.
People are explaining the nuance to you and you’re not getting it, maybe it wasn’t an act.
Don’t deprive German consumers of Coca Cola they did nothing wrong
You do realize this doesn’t make you look clever right?
let he who is without sin cast the first stone isn’t really about encouraging everyone to cast stones simultaneously and at will
They’re allowed to play wherever they want. If they cared about the genocide then they would boycott Israel.
That doesnt matter if they intend to play for their fans and not for their gov. Why should fans be punished for a gov that doesnt listen?
The open letter to them that was signed by artists from Sonic Youth, TV on the Radio, and a bunch of other artists and activists says it better than I could,
Their government is, to a large extent, listening. A lot of the nonsense we’ve seen this last year was Netanyahu trying to cling to power, but most of it is Israeli popular will. They want the genocide; some of them just don’t want to sacrifice the hostages to make it happen.
How do you know? Do you have any data that shows that the majority want the violence?
There.
Relevant:
It’s no secret, really.
As of mid sept, polls show 41% of them do. Not a majority but far too much when it’s genocide and ethnic cleansing we are talking about.
If 2/5ths of your population want to keep indiscriminately killing innocent men, women and children, it’s up to the other 3/5ths to tell them to sit down and teach them why they suck. It’s not up to the rest of the world to go “we’ll it’s not a majority, I guess as long as only 40% of them are drooling at the thought of dead children, a boycott would be unfair.”
According to a random poll I just looked up, 29% of Americans “somewhat care” if their politicians support genocide. Maybe we should pressure them to care more and join the 19% that care a lot.
Boycott America until people take it seriously and stop funding them.
Yes
I’m (truly) not sure if this reasoning applies to the people of Israel at large. To be fair, the same can increasingly be said of Americans who continue to support Republicans as they go mask off.
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2024/05/30/israeli-views-of-the-israel-hamas-war/
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/war-gaza-netanyahu-likud-israel-election-poll
https://en.idi.org.il/articles/56081
I’ve thought about if bands started to boycott red states. I live in a red state, and any band that might boycott would also have more liberal fans. So they would really be hurting those that already agree with them.
But also, fuck our government and the 2/3 of people that agree with those crazy fucks.
That’s not common sense, that’s nonsense. Playing in a country isn’t the same as endorsing the government, but both are bad.
Edit: Wait this is in 2017. Still bad-ish, but less bad.