Former Pink Floyd bassist and songwriter Roger Waters has joined the campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel, and is urging other artists to do the same.
In a letter posted on the website of the Alternative Information Center, Waters said he would continue to wage a boycott campaign against Israel until it ends its occupation of the West Bank and dismantles the security fence, grants full equality to Arab citizens of Israel and allows all Palestinian refugees to return to their homes in Israel.
“Where governments refuse to act, people must, with whatever peaceful means are at their disposal,” Waters, a co-founder of the Pink Floyd rock band, wrote in the letter dated Feb. 25.
“For me it means declaring my intention to stand in solidarity, not only with the people of Palestine, but also with the many thousands of Israelis who disagree with their government’s racist and colonial policies, by joining a campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel.
“My conviction is born in the idea that all people deserve basic human rights. My position is not antisemitic. This is not an attack on the people of Israel. This is, however, a plea to my colleagues in the music industry, and also to artists in other disciplines, to join this cultural boycott.”
Waters last performed in Israel in 2006. After visiting Jerusalem and Bethlehem and viewing the security fence – on which he spray-painted “we don’t need no thought control,” a lyric from the Pink Floyd song Another Brick in the Wall – he cancelled his concert at a sports stadium in Tel Aviv and moved it to Neve Shalom, a village in which Jews and Arabs live together in a planned community.
Waters is reportedly planning to place an opinion piece about the ongoing problems in the Middle East in either the New York Times or Britain’s Guardian newspapers, but he has pre-empted that by speaking to TV news network Al Jazeera.
Waters is presently beginning the European leg of his tour of The Wall album which played throughout North America last fall.
The Anti-Defamation League criticized some of the images he used in these shows , which juxtaposed the Star of David and dollar signs, which he later changed.
Other artists, including Elvis Costello and the Pixies, have cancelled concerts in Israel in recent months, citing political reasons.
With files from The CJN
