The seminal 90s rock band that evolved into something far more poignant in the ensuing decades may have blown its own head off with a shotgun called Zionism, as outraged fans accuse it of collaborating on the soundtrack to a genocide.
If Radiohead had never played any of their nine concerts in occupied Palestine – sorry, Israel – to hundreds of thousands of screaming fans of compulsory IDF service age, then the question today might be a simple one:
Is Jonny Greenwood, the band’s celebrated guitarist, Radiohead?
Yes and no. He’s a founding member and musically forms part of the band’s spinal column. Could the band walk without him? Yes, but with a limp.
No, because the other members of the band are equally important, sometimes outspoken, and at least one of them, the band’s frontman Thom Yorke, has sought to distance himself from Jonny on at least one occasion, publicly.
Why does this matter? Because Jonny has been touring with Israeli musician Dudu Tassa, who has been entertaining IDF troops, Vera Lynn-style, who have shot, blown apart, crushed, burnt alive, and starved to death 125,000 mainly women and children in Gaza, whom they call ‘human animals.’
Greenwood is married to the Israeli visual artist Sharona Katan, who has shared her support for Israel’s military campaign. The couple’s nephew was killed this year while serving in the Israeli Defense Force.
Jonny isn’t afraid to show his colors… he attended and played at a pro-Israel march in Tel Aviv in May: an event where producing a Palestinian flag would get you lynched. Hopefully, he hasn’t also been down at the border pulling life-saving packages off aid trucks and stamping on them, too.
The temptation, if you love Radiohead as much as I do (did?), is to imagine they’re making the world a better place by putting politics aside to play to people on a human level, regardless of who their governments are or what they’re currently doing to other people.
The idea behind Jonny and Dudu’s album of Arabic love songs seems as beautiful as it sounds, so why break off from that vibe to entertain soldiers of the ‘most moral army in the world’ as they eviscerate two million trapped and desperate people in a modern replay of the Nazis’ liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto?
If it wasn’t for millions more outraged people around the world taking to the streets to demand Israel stop their genocidal attack on Palestine (because their governments are in cahoots with the perpetrators), every Gazan would by now be in the Sinai desert, and Israeli real estate agents would be making another killing, selling off Gaza’s beachfront land.
Many of these protesters are, or at least were, Radiohead fans for most of their lives who are now discovering the truth about the band’s leanings. So, Radiohead’s name is part of the story where it could before have just been Jonny’s.
Greenwood has responded to fans’ criticism on social media, saying: “No art is as ‘important’ as stopping all the death and suffering around us. How can it be? But doing nothing seems like a worse option. And silencing Israeli artists for being born Jewish in Israel doesn’t seem like any way to reach an understanding between the two sides of this apparently endless conflict.”
So, no call for an end to Israel’s genocide, then…
The pro-Palestine Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement responded to him with: “Palestinians unequivocally condemn Jonny Greenwood’s shameful artwashing of Israel’s genocide.”
It would be simple to say that Radiohead should just fire Jonny and replace him to send a clear message to their many millions of fans that their money has not been and will not be used to directly support one of the greatest and most stomach-churning crimes of the modern age.
One rotten apple can destroy the whole bunch. So Thom, Ed, Colin, Phil… it’s time to tell us as a group where you stand, and I’ll know whether to take all my beloved Radiohead records off the shelf and bin them, or not.
