Radiohead star’s gig with Israeli musician cancelled after ‘credible threats’

A Radiohead musician has said his forthcoming UK shows were cancelled because of “credible threats”.

Jonny Greenwood, the lead guitarist of the British band, was scheduled to perform in Bristol and London alongside Dudu Tassa, an Israeli musician, next month.

Last week it was announced the gigs will no longer go ahead. Separately, anti-Israel activists had demanded their cancellation because of the IDF military operation in Gaza.

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (Pacbi), a member of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, welcomed the scrapping of the gigs. There is no suggestion Pacbi was the reason for the cancellation.

On Tuesday, a letter from Greenwood, Tassa and their musicians said: “The venues and their blameless staff have received enough credible threats to conclude that it’s not safe to proceed. Promoters of the shows can’t be expected to fund our, or our audience’s, protection.”

The letter added that the “cancellation will be hailed as a victory by the campaigners behind it, but we see nothing to celebrate and don’t find that anything positive has been achieved

It went on: “Forcing musicians not to perform and denying people who want to hear them an opportunity to do so is self-evidently a method of censorship and silencing.

“We believe art exists above and beyond politics; that art that seeks to establish the common identity of musicians across borders in the Middle East should be encouraged, not decried; and that artists should be free to express themselves regardless of their citizenship or their religion – and certainly regardless of the decisions made by their governments.