Desmond Tutu and Roger Waters ask Radiohead to cancel Tel Aviv

Artists for Palestine UK, a network of artists and activists, has published an open letter asking Radiohead to cancel their concert at Park HaYarkon in Tel Aviv on 19 July, announced in February. Its 47 signatories include Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth and the director Ken Loach.

The letter says that by playing Israel the band would be playing in a state where, according to UN rapporteurs, a system of apartheid has been imposed on Palestinians. Sharing the bill with Dudu Tassa & the Kuwaitis, an Israeli group who play Jewish-Arabic music, would not alter that, it argues, any more than mixed performances ended apartheid in South Africa. Please do what artists did in South Africa's era of oppression: stay away, until apartheid is over.³

Palestinian campaigners, the signatories write, have already asked the band to respect the cultural boycott and been turned down. They set that refusal against Radiohead's campaigning for Tibet and their headlining of a concert for the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Moore and Loach added statements of their own. Moore said he would not cross a boycott line that activists had asked for. It is a small sacrifice in respect to those who struggle in honourable opposition to state-sponsored fascism.¹ Loach spoke to Thom Yorke directly. I'm afraid your pious words will mean nothing if you turn your backs on the Palestinians.¹