Roger Waters targeted in smear campaign over Palestine advocacy

Roger Waters is no stranger to controversy. The founding member of Pink Floyd is an outspoken advocate for Palestinian rights and the BDS movement, but his current Us + Them tour has been met by opposition from pro-Israel groups and a new documentary targeting his views on Israel.

A series of film screenings of Wish You Weren’t Here, a documentary by Ian Halperin that accuses Waters of anti-Semitism, is scheduled in cities across Canada in October. The screenings, sponsored by Jewish advocacy group B’nai Brith Canada, are timed to coincide with Waters’ own tour across the country.

Karen Rodman, an organizer with the Canadian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) coalition, which calls for an international boycott of Israel over the way it treats Palestinians and violates international laws, said that the film’s tour is part of a wider “smear campaign” to discredit Waters and the movement. The BDS committee includes groups like Independent Jewish Voices and Palestine Solidarity Network.

A Waters concert last week in Long Island went on in spite of attempts to shut it down by Nassau County officials who cited a local anti-BDS bill, which passed in May 2016.

The concert Waters held in Miami was marred by a full-page ad in the Miami Herald paid for by the Greater Miami Jewish Federation (GMJF) with the headline: “Anti-Semitism and Hatred Are Not Welcome in Miami.”

In what Canada Palestine Association chair Hanna Kawas calls part of a “co-ordinated” international campaign to discredit Waters and the BDS movement, the GMJF wrote:

“Your vile messages of anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism and hatred are not welcome in our community,” adding, “Mr Waters, stop openly calling for support of a cultural boycott of Israel.”

Encouraged by the same organization, The City of Miami Beach prevented a group of children from a summer camp drama programme from singing on stage with Waters. He responded in an op-ed published earlier this month in the New York Times, headlined “Congress Shouldn’t Silence Human Rights Advocates.”

“I understand that city officials have a democratic right to disagree with my opinions, but I was shocked that they were willing to take it out on kids,” Rogers wrote.

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