IMEU Institute for Middle East Understanding
News Roundup
Radiohead front man Thom Yorke has apparently stuck up his middle finger up at fans waving Palestinian flags in protest at the band’s decision to play in Israel later this month. The singer’s gesture was captured on video during a performance in Glasgow, Scotland at the weekend.
on July 10, 2017
News Roundup
On July 19, Radiohead will end a tour in support of well-received ninth studio album A Moon Shaped Pool with a performance in Tel Aviv, Israel. The show will mark the group’s ninth time playing the city, most recently in 2000 ahead of Kid A. What should serve as a celebration of sorts has been weighed down by controversy regarding the band's decision to play the city despite the current cultural ban...
on June 12, 2017
News Roundup
Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters has spoken out after Thom Yorke dismissed a petition for Radiohead to cancel an upcoming concert in Tel Aviv, Israel. In defending the show, Yorke had singled out Waters—one of the petition’s signees—because Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich worked heavily on Waters’ new album.
on June 5, 2017
News Roundup
Today in political-rock-star beef, Roger Waters has responded to a bitter interview Thom Yorke gave to Rolling Stone about Waters’s public criticism of Radiohead’s controversial decision to perform in Israel next month. Waters says Yorke’s statement, in which the Radiohead...
on June 5, 2017
News Roundup
Roger Waters has responded to Radiohead’s Thom Yorke after Yorke accused Waters of being divisive and attempting to “throw shit at [Radiohead] in public” in regard to an open letter to the band, signed by Waters, asking that they cancel plans to perform in Israel later this year.
on June 5, 2017
News Roundup
Wherever you go, teenagers want to sing and dance. Palestinian teens living in the Dheisheh Refugee Camp in Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank of Israel, want others things, too: security, freedom, hope for the future. "We want our rights, as human beings, as children, as teenagers," says Sireen Khamis, 16.
on March 24, 2017
News Roundup
Thousands gathered in the holy city’s Manger Square late Saturday night to watch one of their own win the “Arab Idol” song contest, the wildly popular ratings monster that brings the...
on February 26, 2017
News Roundup
Tamer Nafar fell in love with hip-hop growing up amid the faded public housing blocks and garbage strewn public parks of Ramat Eshkol, a hardscrabble interethnic neighborhood in the central Israeli city of Lod where life was punctuated by...
on January 11, 2017
News Roundup
Israeli Arab rapper Tamer Nafar's politically-charged lyrics have sparked the same kind of controversy that may have made his hero Tupac Shakur proud. Nafar, from the pioneering political rap group DAM, has touched a nerve with songs like "Who's the Terrorist?" skewering what he and others say is discrimination against Arabs in Israel.
on November 27, 2016