Roger Waters: I’ve made every effort to engage with Radiohead on BDS
Pink Floyd star says he's personally reached out to fellow Brits over their decision to play in Israel
Roger Waters said he personally reached out to Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke requesting that the band cancel its upcoming show in Israel.
Waters — the Pink Floyd guitarist who is a leading proponent of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel — was responding to an interview Yorke gave to Rolling Stone last week. In the interview, Yorke objected to an open letter, co-written by Waters, urging the band to cancel the July show.
“The kind of dialogue that they want to engage in is one that’s black or white,” Yorke said. “I have a problem with that. It’s deeply distressing that they choose to, rather than engage with us personally, throw shit at us in public.”
But Waters says that isn’t what happened. In a statement to Rolling Stone, published Monday, Rogers says he sent three emails to Yorke before publishing the open letter. Waters’ statement says Yorke responded to the first email, but not the second. Whether he replied to the third is unclear.
“On February 12th, hoping to start a dialogue, I sent an email expressing my concern about Radiohead crossing the BDS picket line to perform in Israel,” Waters’ statement read. “A few hours later, Thom replied. He was angry. He had misinterpreted my attempt to start a conversation as a threat. So I tried again… I didn’t hear back. So silence prevailed for three weeks until March 4th when I sent a long heartfelt entreaty to Thom asking him again to talk.”
In his interview, Yorke said Radiohead will perform because: “There’s an awful lot of people who don’t agree with the BDS movement, including us. I don’t agree with the cultural ban at all.” He added that “It’s offensive and I just can’t understand why going to play a rock show or going to lecture at a university [is a problem to them].”
Waters didn’t directly address Yorke’s objections in his statement, but wrote that: “The BDS picket line exists to shine a light on the predicament of the occupied people of Palestine, both in Palestine and those displaced abroad, and to promote equal civil rights for all the people living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea no matter what their nationality, race or religion.”
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