Roger Waters, the former front man of the British rock band Pink Floyd, has likened Israel's policies toward the Palestinians to those of Nazi Germany toward the Jews and slammed the "extraordinary" power the Jewish lobby in his view wields in the United States. "The Jewish lobby is extraordinary powerful here and particularly in the industry that I work in, the music industry and in rock’n roll as they say," Waters said in an interview with the online magazine 'Counterpunch'.
"I have spoken to people who are terrified that if they stand shoulder to shoulder with me they are going to get f***d," he was quoted as saying.
Waters also opined that the Israeli religious establishment's treatment of non-Jews was reminiscent of that of Jews in Nazi Germany. Calling the Israeli rabbinate "bizarre" and outlandish to the point of disbelief, Waters stated that in their eyes all non-Jews existed "to serve them… they believe that the Indigenous people of the region that they kicked off the land in 1948 and have continued to kick off the land ever since are sub-human." The growth of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement should come as no surprise, said Waters, when one realized "the parallels with what went on in the 1930’s in Germany are so crushingly obvious."
Waters explained his calls for a cultural boycott of Israel as a reasonable method of fighting for Palestinian independence. "[T]he occupation, the ethnic cleansing and the systematic racist apartheid Israeli regime is unacceptable… I would not have played for the Vichy government in occupied France in World War II, I would not have played in Berlin either during this time. Many people did, back in the day. There were many people that pretended that the oppression of the Jews was not going on. From 1933 until 1946. So this is not a new scenario. Except that this time it’s the Palestinians being murdered."
When asked why many anti-war musicians "do not touch the issue of Palestine," Waters responded by describing the effects of Israel's ''propaganda machine" on the American public opinion. "Netanyahu’s bluster is poured all over the United States, not just 'Fox' but also CNN, and in fact in all the mainstream media. It’s like a huge bucket of crap that they are pouring into the mouth of a gullible public in my view, when they say “we are afraid of Iran, it is going to get nuclear weapons…” It’s a diversionary tactic."
The reasoning behind Israel's settlement construction policy, said Waters, was "so transparent that you’d have to have an IQ above room temperature not to understand what is going on."
"The fact of the matter is no Israeli government has been serious about creating a Palestinian state since 1948," he claimed, adding: "They’ve always had the Ben-Gurion agenda of kicking all the Arabs out of the country and becoming greater Israel. They tell a lie as part of their propaganda machinery whilst doing the other thing but they have been doing it so obviously in the last 10 years ."
