Discussion on Cultural Boycott and BDS

A few years ago when I wrote to Thom Yorke and, and made

the case for, um,

observing the picket line

and observing the cultural boycott and not going, when they were gonna go a

few years ago to go and play, which they did, and they went

and played in Tel Aviv.

Mm-hmm.

And, uh, he sent me back a slightly snide kind of

answer, you know, be- trying to be funny

and clever and whatever.

And, um,

so, so I wrote a reply, but I showed it to somebody who knows him

and, and they said, "Don't send that.

That, that'll go way over his head, and also it'll

upset him, 'cause you're suggesting that it might be the

wrong thing to do to cross the picket line, and that he's wrong and you're

right about something. And he-- there's no way.

You need to put on kid gloves," and blah, blah, blah, blah.

So I did, I wrote him a sort of e- sort of email that went, "I'm sorry if you

thought I was being confrontational," and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?

And, um,

he wrote back and he said, "Normally people on the other

side of an argument at least have the decency or the grace or the

something to have a conversation." So then I wrote him

back and I said, "Thom,

we, we, the people in BDS would love to-- have been trying to have

a conversation with you for months, and so have I, and we would love to

have a conversation at some time. So when you say that they won't have

a conversation, that they just throw shit at you from far

away,

that is not true. It's a porky pie, my son.

People have been trying to talk to you, and you will not speak to any of them."

Anyway, the exchange goes on quite a long time.

Yeah.

But it just-

Well, how did it end?

That the guy's a complete prick, and he is, obviously.

But I think he's damaged. He's very damaged, you know?

He's obviously very, very deeply insecure.

He's obviously thinks he's very bright, but he's not.

So he can't listen to the voice of re- so he can't actually have a

conversation. That's why he then did an interview with

Rolling Stone where

he accused me

and Ken Loach, the great British film director, and Brian

Eno of being cowards.

For what?

I don't know. You'd have to look at-- You'll have to look at the exchange to-

Okay. I-- Now you have to send it to me

... Cowardly. He says BDS and anybody who has anything to do

with BDS is cowardly and shameful.

Oh. Okay. See, this is amazing. I love, I love when people

twist and invert reality, because Jonny Greenwood, um,

he's married to an Israeli artist.

Yeah.

Jonny Greenwood performed in Tel Aviv this year.

You mentioned 2016, Radiohead performed.

Jonny Greenwood issued this bizarre, frankly bizarre statement

back in June-

He did

... where he said, "It's unprogressive actually to support

BDS, to actually urge artists to not work with

each other." That's

very unprogressive, Roger. And so, "No art is as important

as stopping the death and suffering around us. How could it be?

But doing nothing seems a worse option." So Roger, what does he say

in solution to doing nothing? He says, "Silencing Israeli artists

for being born Jewish in Israel doesn't seem like a way to reach an understanding

between the two sides of this apparently endless

conflict."

Yeah, well, it's-

So-

... bullshit. It's complete bullshit.

Obviously they have no-- There is no argument to

be made. There is the oppressed and the oppressor.

The oppressed are the indigenous people of Palestine.

The oppressor are the settler colonial visitors from North

America and North Europe. That, that's one thing, okay?

The oppressed are murdering. The oppressors are murdering all the

oppressed people so they can steal their furniture and their

houses and their olive trees and their hills and their

streams and their water and their land and their

birthright. There is nothing difficult to understand.

It is not a conflict. It is a

genocide, Thom and

Jonny, and you are supporting it. We must

ban Israel from all international soccer at club level

and international level. We must ban them from Eurovision.

They should never have been in Eurovision anyway. Israel isn't in Europe.

Whatever. What is all that about? That's complete nonsense.

But Israel must be banned for it has to be abs- it has

to be sent to Coventry. It is a rogue state, and

it is a murderous, genocidal, rogue state.

This is nothing against Jews. I've got nothing against Jew-

Judaism. I have nothing against Jewish people at

all.

I'm talking about the genocidal rogue

state of Israel.

I mean, that's what's so particularly-

Complete and utter

... egregious and offensive, I think, to anyone with a

brain, Roger, to be told that it's actually unprogressive to

support-

Oh, it's such bullshit

... a cultural boycott of Israel, and that we're the idiots, right?

We're the cowards, because what's really progressive

and brave

is just acting like, yeah, we could just work with Israelis

and just pretend like,

oh, this is just a seemingly endless conflict.

Oh, they'll be fighting forever.

But we should just join up, kumbaya, and let's all just hold hands and

pretend like there's not an ethnic cleansing campaign.

Yeah, and next year we-

Let's pretend that Zionism is not fundamentally a genocidal

ideology

And next year, Jonny Greenwood, you and your Israeli wife can go and

buy a

seaside apartment in Gaza and live with the other settlers

there, and good luck getting to sleep, you.