Jonny Greenwood and Dudu Tassa Release Statement After BDS Campaign Prompts Concert Cancellations

Yahoo

06-05-2025

Jonny Greenwood, June 2024 (Valeria Magri/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Jonny Greenwood and Dudu Tassa say 'censorship and silencing' led to the cancellation of their two UK concerts next month under pressure from the the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. The Radiohead musician and Israeli singer are longtime collaborators, but have faced renewed criticism over their willingness to keep performing in Israel as the nation's military levels neighboring Gaza. The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) supported protests against the UK concerts on the grounds that Greenwood and Tassa were 'artwashing genocide.'
A statement on social media attributed to Greenwood, Tassa, and their musicians said the two venues, Bristol Beacon and Hackney Church, had 'received enough credible threats to conclude that it's not safe to proceed.' Those claims are unsubstantiated, PACBI notes, saying the shows 'were cancelled following peaceful BDS pressure.' Pitchfork has emailed the venues to clarify the nature of any threats and how they have been linked to the BDS movement, as Greenwood and Tassa imply.
The duo's statement continues, 'Forcing musicians not to perform and denying people who want to hear them an opportunity to do so is self-evidently a method of censorship and silencing. Intimidating venues into pulling our shows won't help achieve the peace and justice everyone in the Middle East deserves.'
PACBI, which helped found the BDS movement, has argued in a string of statements that Greenwood and Tassa's ties to Israel go beyond cultural exchange. The campaign to boycott their tour was prompted by a Tel Aviv concert, in May 2024, when the duo performed 'on a night that genocidal Israeli forces massacred displaced Palestinians in their tents in Rafah, burning them alive, just a short drive away.' Greenwood, in a statement last year, argued that BDS is 'silencing Israeli artists for being born Jewish in Israel.'
Responding to today's statement, PACBI noted that the duo recently performed at Tel Aviv club Barby, which, in 2014, handed out T-shirts to Israeli Defense Force soldiers reading 'Fuck you, we're from Israel,' after the IDF's massacre of Palestinians in Shejaiya. PACBI added that it is calling for the boycott of 'future shows by Greenwood's other projects, including Radiohead, unless they convincingly distance themselves, at a minimum, from his consistent, shameful complicity in artwashing Israel's genocide in Gaza.'
The record Greenwood and Tassa are touring—Jarak Qaribak, Arabic for Your Neighbour Is Your Friend—is primarily an album of Arabic love songs, featuring singers from Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait, and Iraq, their own statement notes. Nour Freteikh, a Palestinian singer, also appears on the record, along with guests from Egypt, Dubai, and other Middle Eastern countries. Greenwood and Tassa say that while critics on the political right say their music is 'too inclusive, too aware of the rich and beautiful diversity of Middle Eastern culture,' those on the left argue that they are 'only playing it to absolve ourselves of our collective sins.' They continue, 'We dread the weaponisation of this cancellation by reactionary figures as much as we lament its celebration by some progressives.'
Greenwood and Tassa draw comparisons between their show cancellations and the international backlash against the Irish rap trio Kneecap, who broadcast messages at Coachella condemning Israel for 'committing genocide against the Palestinian people.' Footage was later unearthed of a member of the group saying 'up Hamas, up Hezbollah' and calling for the death of Conservative members of Parliament. (Kneecap have since apologized, claiming the latter footage was taken out of context and they have never supported Hamas or Hezbollah; UK terror police is investigating the trio.) A statement by artists including Massive Attack, Pulp, and Fontaines D.C. condemned the 'concerted attempt to censor and ultimately deplatform' Kneecap. Greenwood and Tassa's statement responds, 'We have no judgement to pass on Kneecap but note how sad it is that those supporting their freedom of expression are the same ones most determined to restrict ours.' In his Red Hand Files newsletter, Nick Cave appeared to concur with the notion that defending Kneecap while denouncing Greenwood and Tassa amounted to 'hypocrisy.'
The duo's statement concludes, 'We feel great admiration, love and respect for all the performers in this band, especially the Arab musicians and singers who have shown amazing bravery and conviction in contributing to our first record, and in touring with us. Their artistic achievements are toweringly important, and we hope one day you will get to hear us play these songs—love songs mostly—together with us, somewhere, somehow. If that happens, it won't be a victory for any country, religion, or political cause. It'll be a victory for our shared love and respect of the music—and of each other.'
Greenwood has well-established roots in Israel, dating back to a Pablo Honey–era tour of the country that Radiohead members have cited as the first time they were treated like superstars. On the tour, Greenwood met his wife, Sharona Katan, an Israeli artist of Egyptian and Iraqi descent. Their nephew, the Israeli Defense Force sergeant Reef Harush, was killed in combat in Gaza in 2024 at the age of 20. One of Greenwood and Tassa's concerts in Israel that year was a benefit for Harush.
Originally Appeared on Pitchfork