Roger Waters

Look, I didn't comment here to debate with anyone about their contentions with whichever BS regarding Israel they "disagree" - unless you've seen the situation yourself, it's best if you DON'T chime on it because what you see in the filtered biased "headline culture" that dictates the narrative we see day-to-day is not enough to provide anyone with the insight to really make any judgement yourself; the terminology you used here indicate a very rudimentary "understanding," if it really can be considered so, of the situation, and clearly do not grasp the nuances of the full situation. Unconstructive commentary by third parties actually PROLONGS the conflict and hurts both sides, especially the oppressed parties, by way of "media warfare," I suppose is what I'd call it.

Notice how I never brought up Israel nor "Natanyahu" one time in my above comment. It's irrelevant. The whole purpose of the comment is to point out that Waters got exactly what he deserved - that is, he has called for a boycott on Israel and Israelis - if this were about the government, then he'd have directed his "criticisms" towards the government and not take it out on the innocent civilians of the country; instead, he'd rather harass the performers who plan to come to the country. This whole "apartheid" BS, against which I will not provide any refutes - either you understand or you don't - has been going on long before "Natanyahu's" "apartheid policies" (cut me a break, ffs). When Lorde cancelled her concert in Israel, because of pressure from BDS, the organization with which Waters associates himself, my eight year old cousin cried, claiming that Lorde "hates [her]." What exactly is that accomplishing? The end of "apartheid," or just a pissed off child that will learn to hate instead of love?

First of all, the way Waters projects his anti-Israel hate speech is both horribly uninformed, and completely delusional - for instance here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Israel/comments/bzp04b/roger_waters_caught_in_a_lie_about_the_reaction/ and a simple web crawler search would reveal that a much of what he's said is uninformed, or straight up incorrect - for instance, he blamed the IDF on George Floyd's death in 2020 claiming that they taught the police the techniques they used that he believed killed him. He's also compared Israel to Nazi Germany on several occasions - this alone is already a highly antisemitic remark. Antisemitism does not only manifest in ultra-conservative viewpoints, like you would normally think of, and one of the most prominent forms of antisemitism today exists as "anti-zionism," with which BDS associates itself. I'm not going to elaborate on this - this website is not the place to do so - nevertheless, one of the biggest indicators of antisemitism in the 21st century is "double standards;" that is holding Israel, the Jewish state, to a different standard than any other country... where's Waters' boycott of China, a country which has been accused of committing ACTUAL genocide (again, I'm not here to explain the massive difference between Israel's policies and a genocide, or Israel and a so-called "apartheid state"), or Russia - in fact while the rest of Pink Floyd tried pulling their music out of Russia during this Russia-Ukraine invasion (and frankly I would disagree with that practice as well, but that's a discussion for later), Waters ensured that the Pink Floyd music on which he worked remained in Russia... obviously, he's not boycotting Russia despite their aggression towards Ukraine - or Turkey, which is horribly mistreating their Kurdish population? What makes Israel worth boycotting that makes these above countries not worth it? This is called a double standard - while there are ways to criticize Israel in constructive ways over issues you perceive as contentious, as brought up earlier, boycotting the country and its people without equal treatment of other countries is indeed antisemitic.

It doesn't change the fact that Waters has displayed an inflatable pig at concerts, decorated with a magen david - there were also communist symbols on it and dollar signs, which has irked some people, too. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of articles on this and each them say something different and in all of them Waters defended the pig one way or another, so you'll have to come to your own opinion on this; look I have my viewpoints on this incident, and while I do not believe it was intentionally antisemitic in the "traditional" sense, there are underlying antisemitic tones there. He claims the magen david was to protest Israeli governmental policy, but the magen david represents the Jewish people, not necessarily Israel, and is the reason that Israel uses the magen david on its flag - imagine he wanted to protest Turkey by flying a pig (also not halal, just as they're not kosher) with a star and crescent on it... I'm well aware the the star and crescent are actually Turkish symbols and not Islamic, but due to the Ottoman influence in essentially all the Islamic countries, it's become a symbol to represent Islam as a whole. You also have to realize that a symbol like that represents people - protesting the Israeli government by flying an animal considered to be taboo by an entire nation of people, in or out of the country, and putting their symbol on it does more than just protest the government - that's an incitement against the people whom the symbol represents - yes, it's extremely antisemitic, no matter which way he wants to spin his rationale for it.

He's done more stupid sh*t like that, but this is just one example. The anti-defamation league has called Waters an antisemite, as well as many Jewish figures and prominent rabbis. Frankly, I'm incline to call him one to, as I did above. If he doesn't understand why this is, and he doesn't seem to, then he is completely out of touch with reality, which he appears to be. If there is any country that knows what is and isn't antisemitic, it's Germany - and the Frankfurt council that cancelled him cites antisemitism as their reason. I agree with them.

Once again, I didn't comment here to argue with anyone (you included) about Israel itself - I'm just here to point out that Waters is getting the treatment he deserves right now. If he lashes out at people (in this case the Israelis, and by proxy, the Jews), then people are going to lash out right back at him and I'm surprised it took this long to happen in the first place. This incident really does expose him as a hypocrite - if he can't take the dish than he shouldn't dish it out, himself! He boycotts a whole country of people, then he a person should be boycotted himself. It's only fair, right? Never mind "the wall" he wants to tear down (yes that's a multifaceted reference); he's putting up walls and trying to have everyone stand on his side of it. Frankfurt is choosing to stand on the other side. This is not "cancel culture," it's reciprocal treatment, eg, he's getting what he's giving.

Look, either you understand this or I just wasted my time, here. I do not care really to respond to this any further. I just came to laugh at Waters for getting the same treatment he dishes. This thread is about Roger Waters and not Israel, but I think I got my point across and I'm stopping before I ruffle too many feathers...