Former Pink Floyd man Roger Waters has taken Radiohead/The Smile frontman Thom Yorke over his perceived stance over the ongoing conflict in Gaza. Speaking with the Empire Files, a documentary/interview series hosted by journalist and activist Abby Martin, Waters reveals that he corresponded with Yorke after publicly slamming Radiohead for performing a show in Tel Aviv in 2017.
"I wrote a sort of email that went, ‘I’m sorry if you thought I was being confrontational'," says Waters. "He wrote back and he said, ‘Normally, people on one side of an argument at least have the decency or the grace or the something to have a conversation.’
"So then I wrote him back, and I said, 'Thom, the people in BDS [the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement] have been trying to have a conversation with you for months! And so have I!'"
Ask to recall how the exchange ended, Waters simply says, "The guy’s a complete prick!”
Waters went on to criticise Yorke over his confrontation with a pro-Palestine heckler at a show in Melbourne, Australia.
"I think he’s damaged,” Waters says. "He’s very damaged. He’s obviously very, very deeply insecure. He obviously thinks he’s very bright but he’s not. So he can’t actually have a conversation."
Radiohead have received criticism for playing shows in Israel, having visited the country four times to perform, most recently in 2017. Yorke responded in the wake of that visit, taking to Twitter to write, "Playing in a country isn’t the same as endorsing the government. We’ve played in Israel for over 20 years through a succession of governments, some more liberal than others. As we have in America. We don’t endorse Netanyahu any more than Trump, but we still play in America."
More recently, Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood performed in Tel Aviv with Israeli musician Dudu Tassa, and released a statement clarifying his position, tweeting, "No art is as 'important' as stopping all the death and suffering around us. How can it be? But doing nothing seems a worse option. And silencing Israeli artists for being born Jewish in Israel doesn't seem like any way to reach an understanding between the two sides of this apparently endless conflict."
Waters also slammed Greenwood on the Empire Files, saying, "It’s complete bullshit. There is no argument to be made. There is the oppressed and the oppressor. The oppressed are the Indigenous people of Palestine, the oppressors are the settler-colonial visitors from North America and North Europe… There is nothing difficult to understand. It is not a conflict. It is a genocide, Thom and Jonny!"
Elsewhere on the broadcast, Waters slams the recent "pretend" American election, calling Donald Trump and Kamala Harris "puppets" and accusing them of "not fighting it out in an arena all of us wish we never had to see, ever."
