Roger Waters: I've never spoken a single antisemitic word in my life
"Israelis spend millions and millions of dollars every year trying to spread this lie that anybody that speaks against Israeli government policy is an antisemite.”
By SARAH CHEMLARoger Waters, draped with a Palestinian keffiyeh(photo credit: REUTERS)
Former Pink Floyd singer and bassist, Roger Waters, claimed in an interview on August 29, with Hoda Abdel-Hamid, Al Jazeera English’s senior international correspondent, that he has never spoken an antisemitic word in his entire life, putting the blame of his bad image on Israel’s government for investing millions of dollars into demonizing whoever is trying to defend Palestinians.“I’ve never done or spoken a single antisemitic word or act in my entire life, or had an antisemitic thought in my head in my entire life,” he said, adding that he joined the BDS movement because Palestinians have been asking for “basic human rights.”“The propaganda machine that the Israelis run is huge. They spend millions and millions and millions of dollars every year trying to spread this lie that anybody that speaks against Israeli government policy is an antisemite.”When asked why he only focused on the Israeli presence in the West Bank, when he has not spoken out about the Russian occupation of the Crimea, Waters replied that “You cannot talk about the 70-year-old Israeli occupation of Palestine and the relatively recent annexation or change of power in the Crimea in the same breath,” arguing that the two circumstances are different, because, according to him, 98% of Crimean residents preferred the Russian government over the Western-backed Ukrainian government before annexation.“They are entirely different things … it’s not as if the Palestinians in 1948 suddenly said, ‘Can you send down a load of Jewish people from northeastern Europe please to throw us out of our homes and 700,000 of us and tell us that we have to get off the land because they are going to make a Jewish state here, and they don’t want us?’ ”When asked about those who have criticized former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn as being antisemitic, Waters said Corbyn was the victim of a “conspiracy,” initiated by Israel's Strategic Affairs Ministry.“[Israel] used the antisemitic smear campaign to destroy Jeremy Corbyn’s chances” of electoral success, he stated, before criticizing Labour for not dismissing the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism.In the past, Waters has publicly condemned other artists, such as Madonna, for performing in Israel. "If you believe in human rights... don't play in Tel Aviv," he said in a statement directed at Madonna.“How can criticizing the Israeli policy of occupation and apartheid ‑ which is what they’re operating — how can you call that antisemitic? That would be like calling criticism of the South African administration before the end of the apartheid regime in South Africa anti-Christian,” Waters said.Waters' claim that he has “never spoken a single antisemitic word or act in [his] entire life, or had an antisemitic thought in [his] head in my entire life” is contradicted by previous actions and statements.
During a concert he held in 2013, an inflatable pig marked with a Star of David was featured.In a 2013 interview with the left wing website Counterpunch, he suggested that some artists don’t take controversial positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict partly because “the Jewish lobby is extraordinary [sic] powerful” in the US music industry. He also claimed that the “right wing rabbinate” is responsible for promoting bigotry against non-Jews among Israelis.In 2017, Waters compared the Israeli government to Nazi Germany, said there were no harsher regimes in the world – and then contradicted both himself and facts several times in an hour-long live video chat on Facebook.Earlier this year, he called Jewish philanthropist Sheldon Adelson “the puppet master who is pulling the strings of Donald Trump, [Secretary of State] Mike Pompeo, and what’s his name…the ambassador, Greenberg, I think his name is,” Waters said, and went on to describe Adelson as a “right-wing fascist racist bigot.”“Unfortunately this crazy, crazy, crazy guy is also incredibly rich and has the tiny little…prick of Donald Trump in his pocket,” he continued.
