Yesterday I posted about how the UK Pink Floyd Experience defied Roger Waters by coming to Israel and playing here, despite severe harassment from Waters and his minions.
It is quite amazing how Ha’aretz found a different spin on it.
The tribute band the UK Pink Floyd Experience did not perform any songs written by the original band’s soloist, Roger Waters, during several concerts in Israel over the weekend, disappointing many fans in attendance.
Waters, a prominent supporter of the anti-Israel boycott, divest and sanctions movement (BDS) called on the band to cancel its performances and said he extracted a promise from the band not to perform any of his songs.
“To sing my songs in front of segregated audiences in Israel, and contribute to the cultural whitewashing of the racist and apartheid government of that country, would be an act of unconscionable malice and disrespect. The people you intend to entertain are executing their neighbor’s children, shooting them down in cold blood every day,” Waters said in December.
To be clear, Waters wanted the band to boycott Israel, and was mighty pissed they didn’t. True, they agreed not to perform any of his songs, but I suspect he may have charged them royalties for those. What is clear is they defied him. The Ha’retz report even ends on a note to affirm this:
At first the pressure exerted by Waters on the cover band seemed to succeed, and in early December the UK Pink Floyd Experience announced it was canceling its concerts in Israel. But only a short while later, following lobbying efforts by EGOeast, the band put Israel back on its touring schedule.
“I’m sorry you buckled, boys,” Waters wrote in response. To concert promoter Ziv Rubinstein, that put “Waters’ defeat at the forefront of the news around the world.”
“It was not for nothing that thousands of people gave the artists a lengthy ovation at the end of yesterday’s performance,” he said.
Yet Ha’aretz tries to spin this as some kind of victory for Roger Waters and BDS. I’ll let you decide why this is the case.
