An Orthodox Jewish lawmaker from Long Island has said that he believes that an upcoming concert by pro-BDS musician and former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters may run afoul of a local ordinance.
The Nassau Coliseum, where Waters is scheduled to perform, may be bound by a 2016 anti-BDS law that "bars companies from doing business with Nassau County if they participate in economic warfare against Israel,” Howard J. Kopel wrote on Facebook.
"My intent in sponsoring this piece of Legislation was simple: embrace the BDS movement and Nassau will not do business with you. There is no room for hatred in Nassau,” he explained.
"Upon hearing that Roger Waters, notorious front-man for the BDS movement and virulent anti-semite was to preform two shows at Nassau Coliseum, a County sponsored facility, I researched the implications of that show under the passed Legislation. In so doing, it became clear that the lease of the Nassau Coliseum requires compliance with all laws. The question of whether Waters’ scheduled performance would, therefore, violate the lease was, at my request, submitted for verification to the County Attorney.”
Recently the Greater Miami Jewish Federation issued a statement condemning Waters’ "vile messages of anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism and hatred” after he compared Israel to Nazi Germany and said that he thinks that it is impossible to have a dialogue with “a population that have largely been under a state of living in propaganda 24 hours a day, seven days a week, all their lives since they were born.”
Addressing the issue during a Facebook live appearance, Rogers also said that Americans are only pro-Israel because they “have been living in this constant state of hasbara created by AIPAC and the Israeli lobby in the United States – all of them, their whole life."
"I’m not sure there are any much harsher regimes around the world, actually, if you look at it,” he added.
