since it has yet be posted, here's roger waters on the subject:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/06/ ... er-waters/FB: You’re talking about yourself being one of the only one, in your position, taking radical political positions. When it comes to Palestine, you are very open about your support for a cultural boycott of Israel. People opposing this tactic say that culture should not be boycotted. What would you answer to that?
RW: I would say that I understand their opinion. Everybody should have one. But I can’t agree with them, I think that they are entirely wrong. The situation in Israel/ Palestine, with the occupation, the ethnic cleansing and the systematic racist apartheid Israeli regime is un acceptable. So for an artist to go and play in a country that occupies other people’s land and oppresses them the way Israel does, is plain wrong. They should say no. I would not have played for the Vichy government in occupied France in the Second World War, I would not have played in Berlin either during this time. Many people did, back in the day. There were many people that pretended that the oppression of the Jews was not going on. From 1933 until 1946. So this is not a new scenario. Except that this time it’s the Palestinian People being murdered. It’s the duty of every thinking human being to ask: “What can I do?”. Anybody who looks at the situation will see that if you choose not to take up arms to fight your oppressor, the non violent route, and the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (B.D.S) movement, which started in Palestine with 100% support from Palestinian civil society in 2004-2005, a movement that has now been joined by many people around the world, the global civil society, is a legitimate form of resistance to this brutal and oppressive regime. I have nearly finished Max Blumenthal’s book “Goliath: Life and Loathing in greater Israel”. It’s a chilling read. It’s extremely well written in my view. He is a very good journalist and takes great pains to make sure that what he writes is correct. He also gives a voice to the other side. The voice, for instance, of the right wing rabbinate, which is so bizarre and hard to hear that you can hardly believe that it’s real. They believe some very weird stuff you know, they believe that everybody that is not a Jew is only on earth to serve them and they believe 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. The parallels with what went on in the 30’s in Germany are so crushingly obvious that it doesn’t surprise me that the movement that both you and I are involved in is growing every day. The Russell Tribunal on Palestine was trying to shed light on this when we met, I only took part in two sessions, you took part in many more. It is an extremely obvious and fundamental problem of human rights which every thinking human being should apply himself to.
FB: The scary thing is that the extreme Rabbinate you were talking about with the extreme right wing views about the Palestinians and the non-Jews are having a more and more prominent place in terms of the Israeli society, regime and power structure and that is very scary.
I wanted to follow up on the Cultural Boycott and about the fact that you are one of the only ones who take such a stand. You could, as many others do, I guess enjoy the benefits of your success and lead a quiet, at least politically, non-controversial life. Why do you do it but more importantly why do you think not more people are doing it? Why a lot of artists who often take position against wars, why don’t they touch Palestine?
RW: Well, where I live, in the USA, I think, A: they are frightened and B: I think the propaganda machine that starts in Israeli schools and that continues through all the Netanyahu’s bluster is poured all over the United States, not just Fox but also CNN and in fact in all the mainstream media. It’s like a huge bucket of crap that they are pouring into the mouth of a gullible public in my view, when they say “we are afraid of Iran, it is going to get nuclear weapons…”. It’s a diversionary tactic. The lie that they have told for the last 20 years is “Oh, we want to make peace”, you know and they talk about Clinton and Arafat and Barak being in Camp David and that they came very close to agreeing, and the story that they sold was “Oh Arafat fucked it all up”. Well, no, he did not. This is not the story. The fact of the matter is no Israeli government has been serious about creating a Palestinian state since 1948. They’ve always had the Ben Gurion agenda of kicking all the Arabs out of the country and becoming greater Israel. They tell a lie as part of their propaganda machinery whilst doing the other thing but they have been doing it so obviously in the last 10 years . For instance, even after when Obama went to Cairo and made that speech about Arabs and the Israelis, everybody was like “Oh, this is a step in a new direction at least”. But as soon as he visited Israel, they said. “Oh by the way, we are building another 1200 settlements”. Exactly the same when Kerry went last year saying, “Oh I am going to try to get the sides together and talk peace”. Netanhayu said “Fuck you. We are going to build another 1500 settlements and we a going to build them in E1, this is our plan.” This is so transparent that you’d have to have an IQ above room temperature not to understand what is going on. It is just dopey.
You know I read some piece the other day where it said “apparently only the Secretary State of the United States, believes that these current peace talks are real, no one else in the world does”.
It is a very complicated situation which is why you and I and all the other people in the world who care about their brothers and sisters and not just about the people of our own faith, our own colour, our own race or our own whatever, have to stand in solidarity shoulder to shoulder. This has been a very hard sell particularly where I live in the United States of America. 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. I promise you, naming no names, I’ve spoken to people who are terrified that if they stand shoulder to shoulder with me they are going to get fucked. They have said to me “aren’t you worried for your life?” and I go “No, I’m not”. A few years ago, I was touring and 9/11 happened in the middle of the tour and 2 or 3 people in my band who happened to be United States citizens wouldn’t come on the next leg of the tour. I said “ why not? Don’t you like the music anymore?” and they replied “no, we love the music but we are Americans and it’s too dangerous for us to travel abroad, they are trying to kill us” and I thought “Wow!”.
FB: Yes, the brainwashing works!
RW: Obviously it does, that is why I am happy to be doing this interview with you because it is super important that we make as much noise as possible. I’m so glad that this right wing newspaper in Israel, Yedioth Ahronoth, printed my interview with Alon Hadar. At least they printed it. Although they changed the context and made it sound different that what is actually was but at least they printed something. You know, I would expect to be completely suppressed and ignored.
You know that Shuki Weiss( preeminent Israeli promotor) was offering me a hundred thousand people at hundred dollars a ticket a few months ago to come and play in Tel Aviv! “Hang on, that’s 10 million dollars”, how could they offer it to me?! And I thought Shuki are you fucking deaf or just dumb?! I am part of the BDS movement, I’m not going anywhere in Israel, for any money, all I would be doing would be legitimizing the policies of the government.
I have a confession to make to you. I did actually write to Cindy Lauper a couple of weeks ago. I did not make the letter public but I wrote her a letter because I know her a bit, she worked with me on the Wall in Berlin which is why I found it super difficult to understand that she is doing a gig in Tel Aviv on January the 4th. apparently, quite extraordinary, reprehensible in my view, but I don’t know her personal story and people have to make up their own mind about these things. One can’t get to personal about it.
FB: For sure but you can help them, I guess by what you are doing, by writing to them. You can open their eyes because that’s what they need I think.
RW: Yes but if their eyes were going to be opened they would need to either visit the Holy land, visit the West Bank or Gaza or even visit Israel or any single checkpoint anywhere and see what it’s like. All they would need to do is visiting or, read, read a book! Check out the history. Read Max Blumenthal’s book. Then say “Oh I know what I am going to do, I am going to play a gig in Tel Aviv”. That would be a good plan! (sarcastic tone).
. . .
and here's a rebuttal:
http://observer.com/2013/12/the-anti-se ... ink-floyd/The Anti-Semitic Stench of Pink Floyd
We don't need no thought control
BY RABBI SHMULEY BOTEACH 12/12 1:00PM
I’ve read some heavy-duty attacks on Israel and Jews in my time, but they pale beside the anti-Semitic diatribe recently offered by Roger Waters, co-founder and former front man of the legendary British rock band Pink Floyd. In an interview with CounterPunch online magazine, Waters experienced a shocking Jew-hating colonic.
According to Waters, Israel is a “racist apartheid regime” that practices “ethnic cleansing.” A great artist such as himself will not play in a country equivalent to “Vichy government in occupied France.” Likening Jews to Nazi collaborators was not enough. Waters then went further, comparing Israel to the Nazis themselves. “I would not have played in Berlin either … during the Second World War.” Waters believes that Israel is guilty of genocide, only “this time it’s the Palestinian People being murdered.”
Waters was on a roll. Israel is a “brutal and oppressive regime.” And the rabbis, oh, those murderous, racist rabbis. “The right wing rabbinate is so bizarre. They believe that everybody that is not a Jew is only on earth to serve them and the Indigenous people of the region that they kicked off the land in 1948 … since they are sub-human. The parallels with what went on in the 30’s in Germany are so crushingly obvious.”
The Jews are dumping a “huge bucket of crap that they are pouring into the mouth of a gullible public, in my view, when they say ‘we are afraid of Iran, it is going to get nuclear weapons’ … It’s a diversionary tactic.”
I could go on quoting Waters’ interview but I’m getting nauseous just writing this stuff. Suffice it to say that he claims he was offered “$10 million” by a Jewish promoter to play in Israel but retorted, “Are you f—ing deaf or just dumb?! I am part of the BDS movement, I’m not going anywhere in Israel, for any money.” He then tried to dissuade Cyndi Lauper from playing in Israel.
Given this interview, I would assume that not too many Israelis will lament losing the chance to see a Pink Floyd reunion in Israel, and maybe we should just leave it at that. But even loathsome, stomach-turning anti-Semitism deserves a response in case gullible fans might actually believe this twisted twaddle.
Mr. Waters, the Nazis, were a genocidal regime that murdered six million Jews. That you would have the audacity to compare Jews to monsters who murdered them shows you have no decency, you have no heart, you have no soul. The Jews of Germany did nothing to invite the aggression against them. Indeed, they were loyal citizens of a country that many of them had fought for courageously just twenty years earlier in the First World War. They did not blow up buses for political purposes. They did not send terrorists into schools to murder children. They did not preach that killing German children would get them virgins in heaven. They lived lives of humanity and decency and were murdered for no other reason than the fact that they were Jews.
You have disgraced yourself by comparing the martyred six million, which included one-and-a-half million children who were gassed to death in cold blood, to Palestinian terror organizations like Hamas, whose stated intention it is to wipe Israel off the map.
The Palestinians were given endless opportunities to live with Israel in peace, including the 1936-1937 Peel Commission, which partitioned the land into two states, and the UN partition plan of 1947, both of which gave the Arabs far more land than the Jews. The Jews accepted the offer and the Arabs rejected it, and instead dedicated themselves to Israel’s destruction. If you don’t believe me, Mr. Waters, then surely even a bigoted ignoramus like you is capable of accessing Wikipedia.
After the Arabs launched another war of annihilation against Israel in 1967, the Jews miraculously defeated four invading Arab armies and conquered huge tracts of land. Rather than practicing any kind of ethnic cleansing, Israel gave back the entire Sinai Peninsula—an area three times the size of Israel—to Egypt in exchange for a peace treaty, and announced that they would leave the Arabs and the Muslim Waqf in charge of the holiest site in all of Judaism, the Temple Mount. This act of accommodation has no precedent in the history of the world.
Still, Arafat’s PLO, with its declared intention of armed struggle and destroying the Zionist presence, launched terrorist outrages like the 1970 Avivim school bus massacre and the 1974 Ma’alot school massacre. Despite this, Israel never relinquished its hope that Arab leaders who were sincere about peace might arise.
In 2005 Israel voluntarily withdrew from all of Gaza. Their reward? Hamas, with its genocidal charter against Israel, was voted into power and almost immediately began launching thousands of rockets into Israel, targeting homes, schools and buses filled with children.
Muslims have every right to expect that Jews in general, and rabbis in particular, similarly condemn any acts of violence intentionally directed at any Arab civilian. We are all equally children of one God.
But Hamas is motivated not by Palestinian freedom but by hatred of Jews. Hamas’s charter continues to call for genocide against Israel and the Jewish people: “The Day of Judgment will not come until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, O Muslims … there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”
When Hamas came to power in 2006, they channeled the billions they received as the world’s largest per capita recipients of international foreign aid into rockets rather than hospitals, bombs rather than universities. And they intentionally launch their rockets from nurseries and schools rendering the innocent Palestinian population into human shields, not surprising for an organization that regularly murders Palestinian homosexuals under the false accusation of collaboration and engages in honor killings of young Palestinian women whose only crime is to have a boyfriend.
Roger Waters’ balderdash about rabbis believing that non-Jews are subhumans is the dirtiest of blood libels and contradicts the core teachings of the Torah which states in its very first chapter, Genesis 1, that every human being is created equally in the image of God.
And surely, even someone with as rancid a heart as Mr. Waters, is familiar with what Christians call Jesus’s Golden rule, but which is actually found much earlier, in the Hebrew Bible, the commandment to “Love your fellow man as yourself” (Leviticus 19.17), which Hillel, in the Talmud, interpreted to mean, “That which you hate do not do unto others.”
Perhaps Mr. Waters should take Hillel’s advice. Stop maligning a people who have paid a terrible price for the kind of abominable lies that people like Roger Waters unjustly hurl.
