Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood and Israeli musician Dudu Tassa, longtime musical collaborators, pushed back Tuesday against the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement after the duo canceled two June shows in the United Kingdom.

Greenwood, Tassa and their ensemble were set to perform at Bristol’s Beacon on June 23 and London’s Hackney Church on June 25, but both gigs were canceled in recent days.

The BDS movement claimed the cancellations as a victory, reiterating its “call for all venues to refuse to program this complicit event that can only artwash genocide” after the second gig was canceled.

Greenwood, the lead guitarist and keyboardist for English band Radiohead and Tassa, an Israeli rock musician who leads Dudu Tassa & the Kuwaitis, clarified in a detailed response that they canceled the shows due to credible threats on the venues and audiences.

“Forcing musicians not to perform and denying people who want to hear them an opportunity to do so is self-evidently a method of censorship and silencing,” wrote Tassa and Greenwood, posting their response on social media. “Intimidating venues into pulling our shows won’t help achieve the peace and justice everyone in the Middle East deserves.”

The duo pointed out that their latest tour features singers from Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait and Iraq, with ancestral and musical roots from across the Middle East, including Yemen and Turkey, and a shared love of Arabic song.

The musicians said that the organizers of the BDS campaign, who claim that stopping the concerts........

© The Times of Israel