Arab rocker rejects the call to BDS

Radiohead  an English rock band from Oxfordshire is scheduled to play tomorrow in Tel Aviv. This will be their their 4th performance in Israel.  Since the date was announced, they have been subject to an unrelenting campaign of bullying and pressure from anti-Israeli activists.

Thom Yorke (lead vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards) has repeatedly expressed his disgust with the way the band has been treated

From Rolling Stone

I'll be totally honest with you: this has been extremely upsetting. There's an awful lot of people who don't agree with the BDS movement, including us. I don't agree with the cultural ban at all, along with J.K. Rowling, Noam Chomsky and a long list of others.

There are people I admire [who have been critical of the concert] like [English film director] Ken Loach, who I would never dream of telling where to work or what to do or think. The kind of dialogue that they want to engage in is one that's black or white. I have a problem with that. It's deeply distressing that they choose to, rather than engage with us personally, throw shit at us in public. 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. I thought it was patronizing in the extreme. It's offensive and I just can't understand why going to play a rock show or going to lecture at a university [is a problem to them].
Nasreen Qadri, an Israeli Arab singer who will perform alongside Radiohead in Tel Aviv has also rejected BDS bullies claim to speak for the “Palestinians”and  spoke out against calls by BDS activists for the band to cancel their concert in Israel.

In an op-ed in Newsweek, Qadri writes:

An Arabic proverb says "music is the nutrition of the spirit." Music feeds people’s spirits and opens them up. Music builds bridges and this is exactly what I am hoping to achieve through this concert.

Those who call for boycott are only trying to divide us. They are trying to shut down the music. I will not be a part of that. Sadly, there are too many countries in the Middle East in which such a concert could have never taken place.

I was lucky to be born in Israel, and I am grateful for the opportunity to build bridges of understanding.

Alongside Thom Yorke and Radiohead I plan on rocking Israel this Wednesday.

Rock on, Thom and Nasreen and friends, and welcome to Tel Aviv.