Roger Waters has been interviewed by a music journalist called Klaus Kinski (not to be confused with the German actor).
As usual, Waters lies, and cannot keep his hatred for Israel and the Jewish people concealed.
For instance, when specifically asked about his BDS-holing:
Your relationship to the BDS Movement (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) has resulted in protests calling to have some of your shows canceled. This happened with your Nassau Coliseum gigs for example. Did you have any similar experiences abroad?
Yeah! Abroad, well, they threatened to throw me in prison in Brazil because I was sticking my oar into their election by joining the #EleNão movement which failed. You know Bolsonaro, the fascist Bolsonaro, was elected notwithstanding the resistance to him. I wanted to go and visit Lula [former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva] when we got down south to where he was in prison and the local judge denied me that opportunity. Because it was a very sensitive time, it was coming up to the election… obviously the only reason Lula is in prison is because he would have won the election standing on his head with both hands tied behind his back IF he could have stood, which he can’t, because they’ve got him in prison on trumped up corruption charges. In the West people just go, “Oh yeah, another corrupt politician.” No he’s not. He is not a corrupt politician; he is in prison on trumped up charges put there by the powers that be in Brazil… So, um, where else… I implored them to lock me up in France where they have Draconian anti-BDS bills, and where they have prosecuted young people for standing outside grocery shops with placards saying “Don’t Buy Food From The Settlements.” In fact, I wrote a long letter to the republic about two years ago asking them what they were doing and why they were doing that. It’s quite difficult for somebody who isn’t French to even understand it. So I am not going to try and understand it myself and reiterate it to you but suffice it to say that picketing a shop that sells stuff from the settlements is considered a hate crime. In France. You can’t believe it. Remember “Des Droits De L’Homme” 1789? Remember universal human rights?
On the BDS front, I did many moderated talks in theaters to groups of people up to about 1000. Maybe Vancouver was the biggest one with maybe 1200 people there. And they were always very interesting and deeply moving and hopefully bore some fruit and had some effect. It’s been a long hard road. I’m a fairly new addition to the BDS scene. I’ve only been doing it since 2006, which is only 12 years. And of course, the problem has been there since 1948, so it’s a long long hard struggle. Even the last 12 years have been. But, we are making great progress and it’s coming to a head, particularly with the new bill that’s gone through the senate 77 votes to 24 or whatever it was. Things are really coming to a head and people are being almost forced to actually address the question which has been right in front of them all through all of this, and certainly over the past 12 years, which is the denial of human rights to the Palestinian people and the ignoring of international law, and all the rest of it. Again, I won’t bore you with chapter and verse and detail because I am sure that’s not why we’re really here.
Waters is speaking about BDS and protests in France opposing the settlements, yet admits the problem is “since 1948” (not 1967). He is basically admitting he and the BDS movement oppose Israel’s very existence.
And for the record, the protesters in France also were opposing Israel and not just “settlements.”
France’s highest court of appeals confirmed earlier rulings that found promoters of a boycott against Israel guilty of inciting hate or discrimination.
The rulings passed on Tuesday by the Paris-based Court of Cassation confirmed the convictions of 12 individuals by the Colmar Court of Appeals in connection with their 2009 and 2010 actions in supermarkets near the eastern city of Mulhouse.
The individuals arrived at the supermarket wearing shirts emblazoned with the words: “Long live Palestine, boycott Israel.” They also handed out flyers that said that “buying Israeli products means legitimizing crimes in Gaza.”
Either Waters knows this and is deliberately lying, or he is a huge ignoramus. I don’t rule out ‘all of the above’.
But back to the interview, where Waters shows not just how much he hates Israel, but just how big his head is.
Were there every any violent protests out there? Did you ever feel you were in any real danger? Like after your anti-Bolsonaro comments in Sau Paulo, did you feel like you really whacked the hornet’s nest?
My security were trying to get me to move hotels and not stay in Rio and blah blah blah and I went, “No. I am not gonna change hotels. I understand that you are professionals and that you are doing your job, but, no.” Maybe I am being extremely naïve, because I have actually been warned a number of years ago in New York. I had a meeting with a man who shall remain nameless but who runs a big international security company and who used to drive the Middle East Desk for the CIA for many years. I keep wanting to spit his name out, but I’m not going to! Anyway, I had a long conversation with this man who was introduced to me by a mutual friend of ours. He sat in my house and he tried to convince me that it is better to be Martin Luther King than Malcolm X, and could I not move my politics a bit closer to the middle and be a bit more inclusive and whatever. And then he started almost suggesting that I was like a suicide bomber. He said, “The thing is, if you go on and strap explosives to yourself and you’re explosive and you sort of blow things up, you maybe give up your potential to change minds and to be effective in the battle for hearts and minds and blah blah blah blah…” And I sort of argued gently with him about his theories, like “I am not religious, so being Martin Luther King is kind of different, but I take your point. But Malcolm X was deeply understood and it’s not a bad position” and so on. At the end of all of this he looked at me and he said “Hm, I just wouldn’t want to see anything happen to you.” And I thought, fuck me, I am being threatened in my own home, by the CIA.
How did we get onto that? Oh yeah! The people that worry me are the deranged fans. It’s the only worry I take really seriously. I am sure if Mossad thought they could kill me they would have done it by now. I know I am seriously on their radar and must find me very irritating. I am a thorn in their side. And I think if they could just get away with killing me they would, because they have very little respect for human life as we know. But, it’s the Mark Chapmans of this world that I think are a bigger worry.
Note how the topic was not even about Israel, but he couldn’t help steer his answer in that direction. By the way, I am certain the Mossad have better things to do than take out a washed-up antisemitic musician. He is really not that important.
Later in the interview, Waters slips up again, making it very clear he has a problem with Jews, without actually saying the “J” word:
This is a subject you addressed back in 1992 with “The Bravery of Being Out Of Range.” That detached, long-distance violence.
Yeah it is. It is my oeuvre because it’s not something I’ve ever been able to turn my back on. Since I was a young man it always really worried me, desperately, this idea that if people don’t fall into line, well, we’ll just kill ‘em. What?! I thought we were supposed to be civilized? You mean if they get upset because we’re stealing their rubber, or enslaving them or whatever it might be that Whitey has done all over the world… if they get upset about it, well we just kill them? And THEN produce the narrative in the homeland that it’s ok, that it’s not really evil. That we’ve been chosen by God to rule the world. This “chosen by God to rule” thing doesn’t belong only to the Israelis. It kind of belongs to Mike Pence as well. It’s what they believe. They believe that they were chosen by God to rule the world.
Waters also rants about online Israel advocates and has the chutzpah to claim he is open to having dialog. This coming from someone promoting a boycott, which is the antithesis of dialog.
When it comes to your activism and human rights, you’re often in the defensive position. I wondered if it ever just gets torturously mundane or if you enjoy the challenge of political jousting?
No, I don’t like it. It’s bloody hard work. But, in a way, to be forced to know what you’re talking about is not a bad thing. You could see it as part of the education process, and I’m 75 years old. I’m glad I’m still learning stuff. The ad hominem attacks that I receive every minute, and I get them every minute on the internet from the Israeli lobby trolls, are particularly irritating. The really bad thing about social media is that if you post anything anywhere on social media, you open yourself up to having a quasi-dialog with people you would be far better off not talking to at all. Because they’re fucking idiots and they’re vile and they’re vicious and they’re stupid and they’re beneath having a conversation with. I am happy to have conversations with people who have an opposing point of view but have an IQ above room temperature and can have a proper conversation about the pros and cons of Zionism or whatever. And you CAN have that conversation about the pros and cons of Zionism and at the end of the day however intelligent people are you may come to an impasse, usually because the almighty comes into it in some way. It’s very difficult to square faith with human rights. Which is one of the complaints that we make about the extreme end of Jihadist activity. You think “These people are crazy,” and even Mike Pence will believe that. Unfortunately, Mike Pence can’t see that he’s no different than Jihadis; he’s the same, it’s just a different faith. To be attached to your faith in a way that is inhumane, sociopathic, insane, like Isis, it’s exactly the same with the Christian Evangelicals in the United States who want the world to end, who want the end of times. And that’s why they support Zionism. It would be funny if it wasn’t tragic.
You have to love his complaints about being on the receiving end of “ad hominem attacks”, followed by his launching into ad hominem attacks (“they’re fucking idiots and they’re vile and they’re vicious and they’re stupid and they’re beneath having a conversation with. I am happy to have conversations with people who have an opposing point of view but have an IQ above room temperature”). I’d suggest Waters is projecting.
But we seem to be getting to him. Keep it up!
Also lovely how he compares religious Christians and Zionists to actual Jihadi terrorists.
Later on, Waters speaks of crying when children die. Naturally, he only mentions palestinian children because I assume he thinks Israeli children have it coming.
They understand that my work is about the fact that I burst into tears when I see a child die. I can’t fucking bear it. Every child that is shot by the Israelis in Gaza on the border; I burst into tears. I can’t stand it. There are millions and millions of people who are developed enough in terms of their attachment to their capacity for empathy who burst into tears when a child dies.
The interview ends with Waters saying something nasty about his fellow Pink Floyd members.
It’s a common misconception that the other guys were the musicians in the band. That’s just… what a crock of shit that is.
Actually, that would make a great epitaph for his gravestone: “What a crock of shit he was.”
