Thom Yorke, frontman of Radiohead. Photo: Alex Cropper/Sipa USA

Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke said the British rock band will not be performing in Israel again, even though the group’s lead guitarist, Jonny Greenwood, has family roots in the Jewish state.

In an interview with The Sunday Times, Yorke, 57, was asked if Radiohead would return to Israel for a concert after the band’s controversial gig in Tel Aviv in 2017.

“Absolutely not,” the vocalist replied, before taking a shot at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“I wouldn’t want to be 5,000 miles anywhere near the Netanyahu regime, but Jonny has roots there. So, I get it.”

The interview took place before the recent ceasefire agreement between Israel and the Hamas terrorist organization halted fighting in Gaza.

“I would also politely disagree with Thom,” Greenwood added during the interview. “I would argue that the government is more likely to use a boycott and say, ‘Everyone hates us — we should do exactly what we want.’ Which is far more dangerous.”

Radiohead performed at Park Hayarkon in July 2017 despite criticism and pressure to cancel the show from supporters of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, including director Ken Loach and musicians Roger Waters, Thurston Moore, and Young Fathers.

During a solo show in Melbourne, Australia, last year, Yorke was heckled by an audience member about his silence on the Israel-Hamas war.  The incident resulted in Yorke storming off stage. He later posted a lengthy statement on social media explaining what happened and also his thoughts on the Middle East conflict.

“I think Netanyahu and his crew of extremists are totally out of control and need to be stopped, and that the international community should put all the pressure it can on them to cease,” the musician wrote. He also argued that “the unquestioning Free Palestine refrain that surrounds us all does not answer the simple question of why the hostages still have not all been returned? For what possible reason?”

Greenwood, 53, is married to Israeli artist Sharona Katan. He has collaborated with Israeli musician Dudu Tassa since 2008, and in 2023, they released an album titled “Jarak Qaribak” (“Your Neighbor Is Your Friend”), which features musicians from across the Middle East. Greenwood and Tassa have performed together in Israel and were scheduled to have shows in the UK this summer, but they were canceled following pressure and alleged threats from BDS supporters.

Radiohead announced last month that for the first time in over seven years, the band will play live shows across Europe in November and early December. During the band’s break, Yorke and Greenwood worked together on three albums for their side band, The Smile. Yorke told The Sunday Times he is concerned about the new tour being targeted by anti-Israel agitators.

“But they don’t care about us,” he added. “It’s about getting something on Instagram of something dramatic happening and, no, I don’t think Israel should do Eurovision. But I don’’ think Eurovision should do Eurovision. So, what do I know?”

Immediately after the announcement about Radiohead’s tour, supporters of the BDS movement called for a boycott of the concerts. The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) complained about the band’s alleged “complicit silence” about the Israel-Hamas war and support for Israeli performers, like Tassa, during the “genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.” PACBI urged Radiohead fans to boycott the band’s concerts until it “convincingly distances itself” from Greenwood because of his performances in Israel and collaboration with Israeli musicians.

PACBI also noted that Radiohead has “yet to apologize” for the band’s 2017 performance in Israel and criticized Tassa for entertaining “genocidal Israeli forces in between these massacres of Palestinians in Gaza, willingly acting as a cultural ambassador for apartheid Israel.” Tassa played a show for the Israel Defense Forces in November 2023.

“This wakes me up at night,” Yorke told The Sunday Times about the boycott efforts. “They’re telling me what it is that I’ve done with my life, and what I should do next, and that what I think is meaningless. People want to take what I’ve done that means so much to millions of people and wipe me out. But this is not theirs to take from me — and I don’t consider I’m a bad person.”

“A few times recently I’ve had ‘Free Palestine!’ shouted at me on the street. I talked to a guy. His shtick was, ‘You have a platform, a duty and must distance yourself from Jonny’ … It’s a purity test, low-level Arthur Miller witch-hunt,” he added about being targeted by pro-Palestinian activists and pressured to distance himself from Greenwood. “I utterly respect the dismay but it’s very odd to be on the receiving end.”

Greenwood defended himself against the criticism over his close connection to Israel and work with Israeli musicians.

“When what I do with the musicians is described as sinister or devious? Well, I’ve done this for 20 years,” he explained to The Sunday Times. “Look, I have been to anti-government protests in Israel … I spend a lot of time there with family and cannot just say, ‘I’m not making music with you f–kers because of the government.’ It makes no sense to me. I have no loyalty — or respect, obviously — to their government, but I have both for the artists born there.”

“The only thing that I’m ashamed of is that I’ve dragged Thom and the others into this mess — but I’m not ashamed of working with Arab and Jewish musicians,” he told the publication. “I can’t apologize for that.”

Yorke previously responded to backlash about Radiohead’s 2017 concert in Tel Aviv. “Playing in a country isn’t the same as endorsing its government. We don’t endorse Netanyahu any more than [US President Donald] Trump,” he said.

Radiohead guitarist Ed O’Brien, 57, has posted on social media in the past in support of the “Free Palestine” cause. He also wrote in a social media post last year: “Like so many of you I have found the events of Oct. 7 and what has followed too awful for words. Anything that I have tried to write feels so utterly inadequate. Ceasefire now. Return the hostages.” When asked by The Sunday Times about the controversy surrounding Radiohead’s 2017 gig in Israel, he said, “We should have played Ramallah in the West Bank as well.”

Radiohead drummer Philip Selway, 58, told the publication that it is “impossible” for the band to meet the demands of the BDS movement. “They want us to distance ourselves from Jonny, but that would mean the end of the band and Jonny is coming from a very principled place,” he said. “But it’s odd to be ostracized by artists we generally felt quite aligned to.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks to the press following his meeting with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (not pictured) at the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem, Oct/ 23, 2025. Photo: Fadel Senna/Pool via REUTERS

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Monday that Washington does not view a strike that Israel said targeted a member of a Palestinian terrorist group in Gaza as a violation of a US-backed ceasefire.

Israel said it struck a member of the Islamic Jihad group on Saturday, accusing the individual of planning to attack Israeli troops. Islamic Jihad denied it was planning an attack.

Speaking aboard President Donald Trump’s plane during a trip to Asia, Rubio said: “We don’t view that as a violation of the ceasefire.”

The US top diplomat added that Israel has not surrendered its right to self-defense as part of the agreement brokered by Washington, Egypt, and Qatar that saw the main terrorist faction in Gaza, Hamas, release the remaining living hostages held in Gaza this month.

“They have the right if there’s an imminent threat to Israel, and all the mediators agree with that,” Rubio said.

Rubio said the ceasefire in Gaza, which remains in force between Israel and Hamas just over two years since the war began, was based on obligations on both sides, reiterating that Hamas needs to speed up the return of the remains of hostages who died in captivity.

Israel’s Saturday strike came shortly after Rubio departed Israel after a visit aimed at shoring up the ceasefire.

Pope Leo XIV arrives to lead the Mass for the Jubilee of Synodal Teams and Participatory Bodies at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, Oct. 26, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yara Nardi

Pope Leo will visit eight towns and cities in Turkey and Lebanon later this year, the Vatican said on Monday, his first trip outside Italy as pontiff, and he is expected to make appeals for peace across the region.

Leo, the first US pope, will visit Turkey from Nov. 27 to 30 and then will be in Lebanon from Nov. 30 to Dec. 2.

Leo‘s predecessor Pope Francis had planned to visit both countries but was unable to go because of his worsening health. Francis died on April 21, and Leo was elected as the new pope on May 8 by the world’s cardinals.

A central part of the visit to Turkey will be several joint events with Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual leader of the world’s 260 million Orthodox Christians, who is based in Istanbul.

They will celebrate the 1,700th anniversary of a major early Church council, which took place in Nicaea, now called Iznik.

“It is profoundly symbolical that Pope Leo … will visit [the patriarch] on his first official journey,” Rev. John Chryssavgis, an adviser to Bartholomew, told Reuters.

Leo will also meet Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in the capital Ankara, visit the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, and will celebrate a Catholic Mass at Istanbul’s Volkswagen Arena.

In Lebanon, the pope will meet President Joseph Aoun in Beirut, will host an inter-religious meeting, and will lead an outdoor Mass on the Beirut waterfront.

The pope will also pray at the site of the 2020 chemical explosion at the Beirut port that killed 200 people and caused billions of dollars’ worth of damage.

Traveling abroad has become a major part of the modern papacy, with popes seeking to meet local Catholics, spread the faith, and conduct international diplomacy.

A new pope‘s first travels are usually seen as an indication of the issues the pontiff wants to highlight during his reign.

Both Turkey and Lebanon are majority Muslim countries, and Francis put a strong focus on Muslim-Catholic dialogue during a 12-year reign that included 47 trips abroad.

The official motto of Leo‘s Lebanon trip is “Blessed are the peacemakers.”