Jonny Greenwood and Israeli collaborator Dudu Tassa have issued a statement in response to recent cancellations of their gigs, which were brought about after protesters linked to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) called on promoters to pull the events in solidarity with Palestine.
The Radiohead musician and Israeli singer are frequent collaborators, and have faced ongoing criticism of their willingness to perform in Israel amid the nation’s ongoing military assault on Gaza. Tassa has also previously played as part of a band that entertained members of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) supported protests against UK concerts by the pair on the grounds that they were were “artwashing genocide”.
A statement attributed to the two artists said the cancellation of gigs at Bristol Beacon and Hackney Church happened due to “censorship and silencing”, and added that the two venues had “received enough credible threats to conclude that it’s not safe to proceed”. PACBI has disputed those claims, saying the shows “were cancelled following peaceful BDS pressure”.
Greenwood and Tassa’s joint statement said: “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.”
The campaign to boycott the two artists’ collaborative shows was prompted by a Tel Aviv concert, in May 2024, when the duo are said to have performed “on a night that genocidal Israeli forces massacred displaced Palestinians in their tents in Rafah, burning them alive, just a short drive away.”.
Responding to Greenwood and Tassa’s statement, PACBI said the duo recently performed at Tel Aviv club Barby, which, in 2014, gave out T-shirts to Israeli Defence Force soldiers reading, “Fuck you, we’re from Israel”, after the IDF carried out a massacre of Palestinians in Shejaiya. PACBI is now 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.”
