The Pink Floyd member specifically addresses the furor in the Salon piece: In addition, Boteach sat silently as casino magnate Sheldon Adelson called for nuking Iran.) (And Boteach has been silent when prominent Israelis, like Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin or Yosef Lapid, have compared Israeli policies to that of Nazi Germany. In one of the most unhinged attacks, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach said Waters engages in “blood libels” because he allegedly compares “the Jews of being the Gestapo, the SS, Hitler himself.” Waters has done no such thing. Right-wing Israel advocates have since engaged in a concerted campaign of character assassination to smear him as an anti-Semite. The parallels with what went on in the 30’s in Germany are so crushingly obvious.” Waters made waves in December when he told activist Frank Barat that Israel engaged in “ethnic cleansing and…systematic racist apartheid.” Citing journalist Max Blumenthal’s book Goliath, he also said that the “right-wing rabbinate” believes “that the Indigenous people of the region that they kicked off the land in 1948 and have continued to kick off the land ever since are sub-human. He writes that given his upbringing–raised by a single mom because his father died fighting the Nazis–he had “no choice” but to speak out for Palestinian rights, given that “the vulnerable Palestinian population still lives under occupation, while…more Palestinians are imprisoned, injured or killed struggling for the right to live in dignity and peace.”
In an Op-Ed piece published by Salon, Waters, who made his name with Pink Floyd, hits back against supporters of Israel calling him a bigot and anti-Semite. Since becoming one of the most prominent faces in favor of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, rock star Roger Waters has come under vicious attack. “The Jewish lobby is extraordinary powerful here and particularly in the industry that I work in, the music industry and in rock ‘n’ roll, as they say,” Waters stated.Roger Waters spray paints Israel’s separation barrier. In a call to the public to join the BDS movement, Waters explained that the main deterrence for many Americans interested in the movement is the backlash anticipated from Jews in the United States. Speaking to CounterPunch, Waters also slammed US policies toward the Palestinians, and attributed them to the “Israeli propaganda machine,” whose messages effectively trickled into the mainstream media. “It’s artistic exuberance and crossing the lines of whatever, but he’s not an anti-Semite.” He uses symbolism, and that’s one issue,” Foxman said. In comments to AP late last month, Foxman had defended Waters against accusations of anti-Semitism. “His shows deliver messages, breaking down wall, etc. Waters would have avoided using the Star of David, we believe there is no anti-Semitic intent here,” an ADL spokesman said. However, the Anti-Defamation League said then that Waters has a long history of using these symbols in his concerts. “We continue to talk about the respect for every religion and every human being, yet we keep falling into these shameful situations.” “… D id they also have the right to draw the Star of David on the back of a pig and not be reported?” the article asked. An op-ed in the Vatican newspaper at the time blasted “unrestrained anti-Semitism” at the music festival in Belgium where Waters displayed the inflatable balloon.
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