English rock band Radiohead’s frontman Thom Yorke has said he would \u201cabsolutely not\u201d perform in Israel, after the band faced intense backlash for playing in Tel Aviv in 2017.<\/p>\n
In a recent\u00a0interview with the British newspaper The Sunday Times, Yorke said he \u201cwouldn\u2019t want to be 5,000 miles anywhere near the Netanyahu regime.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yorke made the remarks eight\u00a0years after Radiohead\u00a0defied calls from pro-Palestinian activists and public figures to cancel their Tel Aviv show, in a controversial decision that sparked widespread backlash.<\/p>\n
At the time, Yorke defended the show, arguing\u00a0that performing in a country was not an endorsement of its government.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlaying in a country isn\u2019t the same as endorsing the government. We don\u2019t endorse Netanyahu any more than Trump, but we still play in America.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, the singer said in the new interview that he now views that decision differently, revealing that he felt \u201chorrified\u201d when \u201ca clearly connected high-up\u201d Israeli official came to their hotel to thank the band for performing.<\/p>\n
During a solo concert in Melbourne, Australia, last year, Yorke briefly left the stage after being interrupted by a pro-Palestinian protester who shouted, \u201cHow many dead children will it take for you to condemn the genocide in Gaza?\u201d<\/p>\n
He later said the incident left him \u201cin shock,\u201d urging fans not to mistake his silence for complicity. He also\u00a0said that Netanyahu\u2019s regime needs \u201cto be stopped.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yorke and his band mates are preparing for Radiohead\u2019s first tour in seven years, with 20 scheduled shows across five European cities.<\/p>\n
Even before the tour\u2019s official announcement, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) urged the fans to boycott it.<\/p>\n
The upcoming European tour is set to begin in November and continue through December.<\/p>\n
Yorke also said that he did not believe Israel should be allowed to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest.<\/p>\n
Eurovision is a major annual international music competition featuring countries from the European Broadcasting Union.<\/p>\n
Calls for Israel\u2019s exclusion have intensified\u00a0over the regime\u2019s genocide in Gaza, with Netherlands, Iceland, Ireland, Spain and Slovania saying in September that they will not participate in the next song contest if Israel is allowed to take part.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"English rock band Radiohead’s frontman Thom Yorke has said he would \u201cabsolutely not\u201d perform in Israel, after the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341],"class_list":{"0":"post-246203","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}