Thom Yorke (Radiohead, The Smile) has issued a lengthy new statement discussing his views on Israel, Gaza, and “social media witch-hunts.” He mentions an incident in October of 2024 he responded to a pro-Palestine supporter at his Melbourne show who was yelling from the crowd, saying, “Don’t stand there like a coward, come here and say it. You wanna piss on everybody’s night? OK, you do. See you later, then.” Yorke left the stage after responding, but later came back out to perform “Karma Police.”
“Some guy shouting at me from the dark last year when I was picking up a guitar to sing the final song alone in front of 9000 people in Melbourne didn’t really seem like the best moment to discuss the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza,” Yorke’s statement reads. “Afterwards I remained in shock that my supposed silence was somehow being taken as complicity, and I struggled to find an adequate way to respond to this and to carry on with the rest of the shows on the tour.”
Later in the statement, Yorke writes, “I think Netanyahu and his crew of extremists are totally out of control and need to be stopped, and that the international community should put all the pressure it can on them to cease. Their excuse of self-defense has long since worn thin and has been replaced by a transparent desire to take control of Gaza and the West Bank permanently.”
He also writes, “At the same time the unquestioning Free Palestine refrain that surrounds us all does not answer the simple question of why the hostages have still not been returned? For what possible reason? Why did Hamas choose the truly horrific acts of October 7th? The answer seems obvious, and I believe Hamas chooses too to hide behind the suffering of its people, in an equally cynical fashion for their own purposes.”
Read Yorke’s statement in full below.
Yorke’s Radiohead bandmate Jonny Greenwood also recently issued a statement addressing the cancellation of his UK shows with Dudu Tassa over threats related to protests against Israel and the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement.