'Complicit silence': BDS movement call for boycott of Radiohead’s 2025 tour

The pro-Palestine Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement has called for the boycott of Radiohead’s newly announced 2025 tour. 

The acclaimed British band has confirmed a run of shows in the UK and EU in November and December. These are their first live dates in over seven years.

The BDS movement’s social media page shared a message from the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), which argued that the band’s “complicit silence” and support of Israeli performers during the “genocide against Palestinians in Gaza” should be met with the boycott of the shows.

“Even as Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza reaches its latest, most brutal and depraved phase of induced starvation, Radiohead continues with its complicit silence, while one member repeatedly crosses our picket line, performing a short drive away from a livestreamed genocide, alongside an Israeli artist that entertains genocidal Israeli forces,” the Instagram post read. 

“Palestinians reiterate our call for the boycott of Radiohead concerts, including its rumoured tour, until the group convincingly distances itself, at a minimum, from Jonny Greenwood’s crossing of our peaceful picket line during Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.” 

The statement makes reference to Greenwood playing shows with Israeli musician Dudu Tassa in Tel Aviv last year. In June 2025, a pair of performances from the duo were cancelled following backlash from pro-Palestinian campaigners.  

PACBI welcomed the cancellations, claiming the performances would have "whitewashed" the war in Gaza.

Greenwood and Tassa posted a joint statement addressing the cancellations: “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,” continued the statement by Greenwood and Tassa. “Intimidating venues into pulling our shows won’t help achieve the peace and justice everyone in the Middle East deserves. This 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.”

The statement continued: “We believe art exists above and beyond politics; that art 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.”

This not the first time Radiohead has encountered backlash.  

In 2017, they played a show in Tel Aviv despite protests urging them not to. Today, PACBI said Radiohead had “yet to apologise” for playing the show. 

Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke responded to the controversy by stating: “Playing in a country isn’t the same as endorsing its government. We don’t endorse Netanyahu any more than Trump.” 

He added: “We’ve played in Israel for over 20 years through a succession of governments, some more liberal than others. As we have in America. Music, art and academia is about crossing borders not building them, about open minds not closed ones, about shared humanity, dialogue and freedom of expression.” 

Yorke also clashed with a heckler in Australia last year, temporarily halting his performance when someone at the show shouted at Yorke to “condemn the Israeli genocide of Gaza.” 

In May 2025, Yorke shared a post in which he explained his stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict: “That silence, my attempt to show respect for all those who are suffering and those who have died, and to not trivialise it in a few words, has allowed other opportunistic groups to use intimidation and defamation to fill in the blanks, and I regret giving them this chance. This has had a heavy toll on my mental health.” 

He added that his music should be enough of an indication to prove he “could not possibly support any form of extremism or dehumanisation of others”.

Radiohead are scheduled to play multiple dates in Madrid, Bologna, London, Copenhagen and Berlin. Fans can apply for tickets by registering on Radiohead’s website here from tomorrow. Or not, depending on where you stand regarding BDS’ call for boycott.