Young Fathers and TV On The Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe also sign open letter to the Oxford band.

Radiohead have been urged not to play their upcoming show at Tel Aviv’s Park Hayarkon on July 19 in an open letter signed by Thurston Moore, director Ken Loach and many more.

The band faced a wave of criticism after announcing the show in February, sparking the formation of Facebook group ‘Radiohead Fans for Palestine’. Now an open letter, which has been issued today (April 24) by Artists for Palestine UK and signed by musicians including Tunde Adebimpe, Charles Hayward and Young Fathers, is asking the band to rethink their decision.

The letter explains that the Oxford group “will be playing in a state where, UN rapporteurs say, ‘a system of apartheid has been imposed on the Palestinian people’.” It also claims that Radiohead have refused to boycott Israel in the past and argues that this seems at odds with the band’s campaigning for freedom in Tibet.

“We’re wondering why you’d turn down a request to stand up for another people under foreign occupation,” the letter reads. “And since Radiohead fronted a gig for the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we’re wondering why you’d ignore a call to stand against the denial of those rights when it comes to the Palestinians.”

The letter concludes by saying: “Please do what artists did in South Africa’s era of oppression: stay away, until apartheid is over.” Read it in full.

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