(Photo: Getty Images For Coachella, Trixie Textor)

As reported by Pitchfork, a group of artists and activists have signed an open letter to Radiohead asking the band to “think again” regarding an upcoming performance at Park HaYarkon in Tel Aviv, Israel. Those who have signed the letter include Thurston Moore, Tunde Adebimpe from TV On The Radio, Young Fathers, Desmond Tutu, and Roger Waters, and it says that if Radiohead goes through with the July 19 gig in Israel, it will be “playing in a state where, UN rapporteurs say, ‘a system of apartheid has been imposed on the Palestinian people.’” It ends by asking that Radiohead follow the lead of what artists and musicians did under South Africa’s own “era of oppression” and “stay away, until apartheid is over.” You can read the full statement at this link.


Moore has also released his own statement about refusing to perform in Israel due to its conflict with Palestine, which you can read in full below.

If any concerned, humanitarian-conscious activists employ a boycott to protest brutal injustice in their country and request artists and scholars to refrain from working and/or being promoted as supportive of the normalization of that country—then I choose NOT to cross that line and suggest to all to not be complicit. It is a small sacrifice in respect to those who struggle in honorable opposition to state-sponsored fascism.