The Cost of Our Silence: Alexi Murdoch on Why Artists Must Take Sides

In this episode of The Thin Veil, I sit down with critically acclaimed British musician Alexi Murdoch for a wide-ranging conversation about art, activism, Western culture, and the personal and professional costs of speaking in support of Palestine.

Alexi reflects on why he has found it increasingly difficult to simply retreat into the creative process while witnessing the genocide in Gaza, and why he ultimately felt compelled to use his platform more directly. He discusses the tension between art as an indirect way of awakening empathy and the urgency of speaking plainly when people are suffering.

The conversation also explores Alexi’s 2025 trip to Palestine, what he witnessed in the West Bank, the experience of meeting Palestinians living under occupation, and how that experience changed his understanding of the situation. He also offers many reflections on the broader Western material culture we are living in, and the shallowness this moment is exposing about it.

Alexi and I recorded this conversation in March 2026, before the first episode of The Thin Veil was released. I’m rebroadcasting it now because I think the questions we wrestled with then remain deeply relevant—and because many of you who have discovered the show since its earliest episodes may have never heard this conversation.

This also felt like an important conversation to re-air in a time when artists stances on this are being increasingly scrutinized and leading to greater consequences.

Alexi Murdoch: https://aleximurdoch.com/

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(00:00) - Coming Up: “The Cost of Our Silence”
(01:00) - Why Revisit This Conversation?
(06:14) - When Art Feels Like an Indulgence
(09:19) - When Artists Can’t Afford to Be Oblique
(14:30) - How We’re Taught to See Palestine
(20:12) - “How Did You Go From ‘I Love This Guy’ to ‘Terrorist Sympathizer’?”
(23:50) - A Culture That Lets Us Sleepwalk Through Genocide
(25:23) - Can We Have Hope?
(28:37) - Does Speaking Out Actually Work?
(32:20) - Alexi Goes to Palestine
(39:02) - Meeting Basel Adra in Masafer Yatta
(42:19) - “Don’t Think of Palestinians as Superhuman”
(44:30) - The Problem With “Coexistence”
(46:04) - Peace Without Justice
(52:18) - Anger, Empathy, and the Limits of Forgiveness
(56:33) - The Cost of Speaking Up Is the Honor of Our Lives
(01:00:07) - It’s Not Too Late
(01:02:33) - The Algorithm and the Death of Complexity
(01:04:08) - What Does Anti-Zionism Mean for Israeli Jews?
(01:07:35) - Are People Who Seem Unreachable Actually “Gettable”?
(01:10:30) - The Isolation of Speaking Out

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