Know Your Enemy

"It's deeply disrespectful to assume that we're either being misinformed or that we're so retarded we can't make these decisions ourselves ... It's really upsetting that artists I respect think we are not capable of making a moral decision ourselves after all these years. They talk down to us and I just find it mind-boggling that they think they have the right to do that."

Thom Yorke, talking to Rolling Stone, is clearly not a happy bunny about the open letter signed by numerous musicians and cultural figures urging Radiohead not to play a gig in Israel this summer. He clearly sees the gig as a means of building bridges and pulling out of it as something that would create or at least perpetuate division.

Is Yorke right? It's hard to say. There are persuasive voices on both sides of the debate - but the fact that so many people he admires (including the likes of Roger Waters and Ken Loach, both of whom he singled out) signed the letter has evidently really riled him.