Opinion |
Targeting Radiohead: Why the Boycotters Demonizing Israelis and Jews Won't Silence Me
A pro-Palestinian campaign is targeting my husband, Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood, to cancel his concerts with Israeli musician Dudu Tassa. It's part of a simplistic propaganda war that attempts to erase Israelis from the public square
As I have been dragged into the fray (accused by The Guardian of being pro-war, no less) in their reporting on my husband Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead as he defends his decision to continue to perform with Israeli musician, Dudu Tassa, I've decided to write about my experience.
Netanyahu wants to shut us down. Read Haaretz now.Netanyahu wants to shut us down. Read Haaretz now.
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28
BA
13:55 22.06.2024
Antisemitism like all forms of racism is condemnable. I wholeheartedly agree with the writer of this article. At the same time, I can understand people around the world, who want to see a change in Israeli attitude and politics towards the Palestinian people. As horrific the Hamas attacks on Israeli communities on the 7th of october were, it does not justify the astronomical death toll of civilians and the utter destruction of Gaza. If Israeli society is not willing to reconsider the two state solution and embark on serious negotiations with the Palestinians, then sanctions and a boycotts against Israel are unavoidable and justified. In view of the tragic history of the Jewish people it shouldn't be that difficult for Israelis to feel empathy for the plight of Palestinians who have been dehumanized and discriminated for decades under a harsh occupation regime and been subjected to violence and exploitation by racist Jewish settlers.
27
me
00:23 13.06.2024
Jews are indigenous to the land, and so are Palestinians... What is happening is tragic and the main responsible is Netanyahu who for YEARS has done everything to dismantle the two state solution. Then his administration thugs made it worse. The tragedy of Oct 7 was a a time bomb waiting to happen. That said, punishing the Israeli population and trying hard to delegitimize Israel is neither fair, not productive, not practical. Israelis need to stand against this war, against the unprecedented massacre. It will not only destroy Gaza, it is destroying Israel.
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Dormus Jessop
03:14 13.06.2024me
Bibi's Kahanist government is just the latest in along line of Zionists and Zionist governments that have done EVERYTHING possible to make a 2 State solution Impossible!
26
Dormus Jessop
13:17 12.06.2024
We who criticize Israel and Zionism Do Not Hate Jews! Do not confuse anti Zionism with anti Semitism. Zionism is in fact a master race ideology, the same master race ideology that murdered 6 million Jews in the Holocaust! I would recommend Sharona, read Avi Schlaim, Ilan Pappe, Noam Chomsky or Miko Peled for a look at the real Israel and Zionism. Ze'ev Jabotinsky's Iron Wall and Return to the Iron Wall should dispel any thoughts of her delusional thinking. Ben Gurion himself put the well planned Nakba into action calling the action TIHUR to PURIFY! What a terrifying word for anyone to use. Zionists were proud to use it! They had no qualms about using fascist ideology and were in fact proud fascists, secular ones at that! For Palestinian's the Nakba never ended. Ilan Pappe calls the last 75 years "incremental Genocide". What does Sharona think "Finish 48" means? Gaza is being flattened form one end to the other. Rafah is the last city in this hideous Final Solution!
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Dormus Jessop
13:41 12.06.2024Dormus Jessop
Zionism with the mask off is before your eyes Sharona! Shown for all to see by Smotrich and Ben Gvir. They have no qualms about speaking in "mixed company" or fall back on the "its complicated" double think mantra. Make no mistake it is the same thinking of all former Israeli leaders. Israel was built with terror, founded with terror, expanded with terror and sustained with terror. How else to make 700,000 Palestinian's "flee like mice" in 48 ? How else to make 2.2 million in Gaza? The murder of Rabin should have been the tipping point and wake up call, but no Sharon and Bibi destroyed any chance at a 2 state solution. Israeli leaders and hardcore Zionists considered it an "Inside Joke". 75 years of "Take the Hills", "Make Facts on the Ground" only increased since then.
Dormus Jessop
12:58 13.06.2024Dormus Jessop
Zeev Jabotinsky called Zionists who mouth the words of living side by side in equality with Arabs a "Swindle". Zionists and Israel have been Swindling the US and the world ever since!
25
Scoop
11:02 12.06.2024
Radiohead is going to go down in history as a courageous defender of human rights or of a Judeo-facist state?
24
Hmarouf
10:24 12.06.2024
The reasoning and argumentation you offer as justification for your husband's stand against a peaceful, humanist movement will not convince many. It will be seen as hasbara, with little recognition let alone compassion for Palestinians. As with the defenders of South African apartheid, Greenwood is piling up much historical ignominy for himself.
23
Smarts
09:45 12.06.2024
It is historically accurate that in 1912 "many Jews lived in Jaffa alongside Muslims and Christians". Your implication, through use of the term "alongside", is that your grandparent was happy in Jaffa. But in 1948, 10s of thousands of these Muslims and Christians were ethnically cleansed, and that's just from Jaffa alone. What happened to upset this harmony, and make Palestinian Jews turn against their Palestinian Muslim and Christian brethren? What allowed them to accept that their neighbours who they lived alongside would be so brutally treated and expelled? What did their neighbours do to deserve being ethnically cleansed? Nothing. Look no further than Zionism and its corrupting influence of Jewish supremacy.
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me
00:17 13.06.2024Smarts
a UN resolution?
22
Godfrey Lipton
14:42 08.06.2024
Reposting this comment for the 3rd time. Apparently many of the talkbackists struggle when faced with views outside of their echo-chamber, and have caused this post to be deleted several times.
Sharona, thank you very much for this heartfelt and deeply personal accounting. You bring both a broader perspective to understanding the hatred against jews and Israelis, spanning both time periods and geographies, so founded on ignorance.
I found your story very moving and can only encourage you to keep the strength of your convictions.
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Itai
21:35 08.06.2024Godfrey Lipton
With all due respect, my comments are not anti-Israel. Au contraire. It is the ostensibly liberal, but actually very mythologized and ill informed outlook on history that this lady exhibits that has played straight into the hands of the religious ultra-nationionalists in Israel. I take the time to criticise her as well as many self proclaimed Israeli centrists because if they do not get a graps on reality quick, Israel will be beyond repair. It is not a defense of Hamas. The way this war is conducted is only beneficial to the religious extremists, including Hamas. Israel and Palestine are on the way to the zero state solution. If this lady wants the Israel that exists in her head to become reality, she better start studying the current state of affairs in Israel and how they came to be.
21
Tzezl
22:01 07.06.2024
Mme Katan: Israel demonizes itself, don't blame anybody else
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Tzezl
22:12 07.06.2024Tzezl
Mme Katan: read the historian Avi Shlaim, an Israeli-Iraqian Jew living in England.
Itai
09:12 08.06.2024Tzezl
Good avdvice, the Iron Wall by Avi Shlaim makes minced meat out of many myths regarding the conflict. It goes to show that knowldege and insight is what makes an argument valuable, not personal background. Avi Shlaim has the knowledge and insight. Subsequently, him recounting his personal story as a Baghdad born Jew becomes adds value. Mme Katan has no clue about history. Subsequently, her recounting a similar family background adds only embarrassment.
20
Itai
21:03 07.06.2024
You said you want peace, but you did not write a word about the occupation. You mention Israeli independence, but you never mentioned the Nakba. You mention the Farhud and the Holocaust, neither of which the Palestinians had any part in. You mention that Israeli's are not white, but that is not the claim of proper academics who speak about Zionist settler colonialism. That certain things are true does not make them relevant. No matter how genuine your feelings are, this writing is propaganda.
19
Ragla
17:27 06.06.2024
Woe is me + a few sentences on the millions Israelis have oppressed for years.
