Radiohead comes under Palestinian fire
NewsThe sinister BDS is calling for ‘creative, peaceful pressure’ on the prog-rock group Radiohead to ‘convincingly distance itself’ from Israel.
The euphemisms here are insidious.
Radiohead’s creative force Johnny Greenwood is married to an Israeli artist, Sharona Katan, and lives in Italy. His children are being raised with an awareness of their Jewish heritage.
What does BDS want Greenwood to do – get divorced? disown his children? retune his Ondes Martenot to a Hamas frequency?
“We call for peaceful, creative pressure on @radiohead to convincingly distance itself from this blatant complicity in the crime of crimes, or face grassroots measures.” https://t.co/25XN9QdwQt
— BDS movement (@BDSmovement) May 30, 2024
It seems the ask is pretty clear: don’t perform in Israel. Nothing to do with his spouse. You may disagree with this demand, but to pretend it’s unclear what they want is disingenuous. What they ask for is obvious.
That’s the name of the game – pretend… Most people pretend to sympathize with the Palestinians, but in reality they just hate Jews and Israel. After all, not everyone is so stupid that they don’t understand who started the war and why people are actually dying. A lot of countries, including Western democracies, have killed a lot of people over the past 80 years. And they did it thousands of miles from home. Not a single one was judged the way Israel is being judged, which is trying to defend itself…what is this if not a pretense? What is this if not a project in which billions of Qatari and Iranian dollars are being invested?
Dude. People have attempted citizens’ arrests on Tony Blair over the Iraq War. Verso had a whole books ready to go to celebrate Henry Kissinger’s death and account for his legacy. The New York Times won a Pulitzer for its 5-year investigation of American civilian killings in Iraq (mind you, the US changed its civilian casualty policies afterwards, something Israel has not done). Stop with the ‘ooooh only Israel is being judged’.
Canada, meanwhile, recognised a genocide it committed against First Nations but was also denounced by UN institutions beforehand. Germany is widely condemned for refusing to recognise the Herero genocide. Some countries are judged differently, because they…act differently.
It’s clearly a physical threat.
Yeah, apart from the “clearly”, “physical”, and “threat” parts, it certainly is.
Isolate the Jews, make their lives unsafe, remove them from society, declair them unhuman. Make their existance an offence. Kill them. Subtitute “the Jews” with “Israel” – that’s what they want.
No one is asking for this. People like you seem to be incapable of understanding the misery of others
No one is asking for this? Reallyy?! Hamas is openly calling for the extermination of the Jews all over the world. Iran is calling for the extermination of Israel.
“Free Palestine from the river to the sea” is just that.
The demonstrations all over the west are not directed at Israelis, they are directed against local Jews. Why?
Describing “People like me” (probably Jews) as incapable to understand the misery of others is another way to de-human us. Actually I do understand the misery of others, just like any Englishman was able to understand the misery of Germans during WW2. I also understand the basic difference in war aims: When Hamas invaded Israel it allocated governers to the various parts of Israel and set rules: which Jews are to be shot on the spot, which allowed to be ransomed and exiled, and which to be enslaved. They vowed to try again. People like you seem to think people like me should let them. Here we differ.
Also incapable of spelling “declare”
“From the river to the sea” seems pretty straightforward.
Israel controls the entirely of the land (and water, and air) river-to sea. Everyone, river-to-sea, equal under the law. That’s what “river-to-sea” means.
Do you mean the suffering of hostages in Hamas tunnels? By the way, it was built with billions of your donations.
And you seem to fail to understand that Hamas started this conflict with the slaughter of 1200+ Israeli civilians and now that the shit has hit the fan and Palestinian civilians are suffering (the same civilians who celebrated in the streets when the invasion of Israel was announced) the bleeding heart liberals crawl out of the mire. All Hamas has got to do to alleviate the suffering is lay down their arms and hand the hostages back.
Yet another example of pro Zionist propaganda!
“that’s what they want”
How do you know?
It is strawman arguments like this that prevent real discourse on this. You are missing the fact that if you substitute “Palestinians” in the same context, you are essentially describing Israeli policy.
As a Jew I say that’s exactly what the genocidal state of Israel is bringing on itself…doesn’t need much outside help.
The whole world now sees what this fascist regime’s agenda has always been. It didn’t start on 7 October…this is especially for you too, Norman.
God save us from such Jews.
The great German Fischer-Dieskau, having visited Israel, wrote: it is clear to everyone who just wants to live in peace, trade with neighbors and enjoy life – the greater the contrast produced by the warlike intentions of others.
Now compare what all this time and money was spent on by some (science, medicine, music) and others (tunnels, terrorist attacks). The Palestinian Arabs were given the opportunity to live a normal life, and you, a Jew, want to give them an unlimited opportunity to kill Jews and be happy about it?
There are plenty of Jews like me …… if you knew anything about the worldwide anti genocide movement, you’d be sorely disappointed.
I’m not sure how I feel about BDS, but what they seek is to put pressure on Israel through economic measures: Boycotts, Sanctions, Divestment. All peaceful, no terrorism. No endorsement of Hamas or of Oct. 7. Unless you are going to say that nobody has any right to advocate for any kind of pressure on Israel, BDS is a pretty moderate tool.
This reminds me of people in the United States who say, sure, Black people have a right to protest injustice. But if they march and one person breaks a window, they’re all thugs. If an athlete kneels during an anthem, they’re unpatriotic. If someone proposes reparations, they’re just trying to cash in.
Please, Dear Norman, tell us what is an acceptable form of protest!
Given that the tweet is directly replying to a concert held in Tel Aviv, it would be logical to assume they mean to not perform in Israel, not whatever egregious stretch you’ve come to.
Radiohead would hate being described as “prog rock” 🙂
Hamas could end this tomorrow by releasing the hostages they kidnapped. And turning themselves in for the multiple war crimes and atrocities they committed on October 7 and beyond. Including hiding behind civilians to deliberately put them in harms way. All the humanitarian damage in Gaza has been caused by Hamas. Why should Israel be expected to care more for the well being of Palestinian civilians when Hamas — their elected government — clearly does not care about them. It is Hamas job to keep their population safe. They waged war on Israel and now cry victim at the (very predictable) repercussions of what they started? On what planet would anyone feel sorry for them????
Does this belong on a classical music website? Or is this just a chance to NB to share his political opinions?
Norman, try this thought experiment: Jonny Greenwood is married to a Russian woman, their child is being raised with an awareness of its Russian heritage.
He goes and perform in Moscow while the Russian army is massacring civilians in Ukraine across the border.
Pro-Ukraine groups object and ask him to distance himself from the Russian government.
It’s not that hard to understand. No, it is not antisemitism in disguise to ask people to boycott Israel while Netenyahu and his government are massacring innocent civilians. They are Hamas are two sides of one coin
Your analogy is false in many regards. I’ll start with the fact that Ukraine never harmed or invaded Russia. Hamas cannot claim to be victim in this one as Ukraine can.
Who makes a fuss about an Austrian pianist or a German conductor or a Belgian conductor who performs in Russia during the Ukraine War?
Pretty much everybody.
Ah if only his wife was Russian… Then it would be OK, right?
(Sarc/off)
BDS isn’t calling for anything new, groups like the Rolling Stones and the Beatles boycotted apartheid South Africa.
To insert that Mr. Greenwood’s “children are being raised with an awareness of their Jewish heritage” is more than irrelevant — it is manipulative, furthering the politically-useful invention that the movement for equal human rights river-to-sea (=BDS) is somehow in opposition to Judaism or being Jewish.
The question is whether the Israeli state is guilty of crimes deserving boycott, not the musicians’ religion or ethnicity.
I doubt anyone on this list would have used such an argument against boycott of old South Africa or, indeed, 1930s Germany. But for Israel, Jewish identity is wielded — exploited — as a human shield. That, not BDS, is “sinister”.
The purpose of boycott is to weaken. What result is the weakening of Israel expected to achieve?
This must have something to do with the aims of “the other side”. Iran, Hamas and their allies call for the extermination of Israel. No matter what BDS pretends to be, that is the aim they in effect promote.
This is never going to end because everybody knows they are right.
As Peter Sinfield wrote in 1969 “the fate of all mankind I fear is in the hands of fools”.
And criminals.
Puke..
It’s nice that current Western liberalism cares so much about the affairs of other countries when their own are in a spiral of moral and cultural decline and the hand-wringing so called intellectuals have presided over a continuing breakdown of law and order in their own back yards.
That never stops the preaching though.