Roger Waters Criticizes Documentary Depicting Him as Anti-Semitic

Roger Waters has launched an announcement criticising a brand new documentary that makes him out to be anti-Semitic.

The documentary The Darkish Facet of Roger Waters explores allegations of anti-Semitism in opposition to the Pink Floyd co-founder and was launched this week by UK-based advocacy group Marketing campaign Towards Antisemitism.

Waters mentions that the filmmakers approached him for remark earlier this month however he declined. Now, nonetheless, he has given his verdict on it in a prolonged put up on his web site.

“All my life I’ve used the platform my profession has given me to help causes I consider in. I passionately consider in Common Human Rights. I’ve at all times labored to make the world a greater, extra simply and extra equitable place for all my brothers and sisters, everywhere in the world, no matter their ethnicity, faith or nationality, from indigenous peoples threatened by the US oil business to Iranian ladies protesting for his or her rights,” he started.

“That’s the reason I’m lively within the non-violent protest motion in opposition to the Israeli authorities’s unlawful occupation of Palestine and its egregious therapy of Palestinians. Those that want to conflate that place with anti-Semitism do an incredible disservice to us all.

“Fact is, I’m often mouthy and liable to irreverence, I can’t recall what I stated 13 or extra years in the past. I’ve labored intently for a few years with many Jewish folks, musicians and others.”

He continued: “If I’ve upset the 2 people who seem within the movie I’m sorry for that. However I can say with certainty that I’m not, and have by no means been, an anti-Semite – as anybody who actually is aware of me will testify. I do know the Jewish folks to be a various, fascinating, and complex bunch, identical to the remainder of humanity. Many are allies within the combat for equality and justice, in Israel, Palestine and world wide.

“The movie completely distorts and misrepresents my views concerning the Israeli state and its political ideology, Zionism. It depends on a definition of antisemitism that sees criticising Israel as inherently anti-Semitic and assumes that Zionism is a vital factor in Jewish identification. These opinions, clearly shared by the presenter and the 2 interviewees, are broadly contested by many, together with many Jewish folks.

“The CAA movie manipulates footage and quotations to serve its agenda and is severely deceptive in lots of respects.

“In abstract, the movie is a flimsy, unapologetic piece of propaganda that indiscriminately mixes issues I’m alleged to have stated or executed at totally different occasions and in numerous contexts, in an effort to painting me as an anti-Semite, with none basis in reality.”

The filmmakers are but to answer Waters’ assertion.

Roger Waters. Credit score: Jim Dyson/Getty

Earlier this week the producer of The Darkish Facet of Roger Waters claimed that he as soon as heard Waters name the band’s agent, Bryan Morrison, a “fucking Jew” whereas he was performing.

Elsewhere, saxophonist Norbert Stachel, who performed for Waters, alleged that the musician angrily rejecting meals in a restaurant that he allegedly deemed “Jew meals”. He additionally alleged that Waters mocked his household, a few of whom have been killed within the Holocaust, by mimicking them.

Documentary makers additionally declare that Waters proposed to make use of anti-Semitic language on a prop throughout considered one of his stage exhibits. After a lighting director of the present, who was Jewish, protested, Waters allegedly eliminated one of many slurs.

In June the US State Division criticised Waters over a present in Berlin, describing it as “deeply offensive to Jewish folks”.

The month prior, Waters appeared on stage at his present sporting a black trench coat with a swastika-like emblem throughout a section that revolved round a personality from Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’, who imagines himself as a fictional fascist dictator throughout a hallucination.

The musician claimed that the section was a assertion in opposition to fascism, injustice and bigotry and referred to as criticism of it “disingenuous and politically motivated”.

US Particular Envoy to Monitor and Fight Anti-Semitism, Deborah Lipstadt, referred to as the live performance “Holocaust distortion” and amplified a tweet denouncing Waters by the European Fee’s coordinator on combating antisemitism.

Based on Reuters, the State Division supported Lipstadt’s remark and added in an e mail that Waters’ Berlin live performance “contained imagery that’s deeply offensive to Jewish folks and minimized the Holocaust”.

The division went on so as to add: “The artist in query has an extended monitor document of utilizing antisemitic tropes to denigrate Jewish folks.”

Waters has confronted vital backlash following the present in Berlin. Throughout a present on Might 31 in Birmingham he went on a rant about how “pissed off” he was at “the anti-Semitism bullshit” surrounding him over the past month and claimed that critics are attempting to cancel him “like they cancelled Jeremy Corbyn and Julian Assange”.

Waters has repeatedly denied all accusations of antisemitism and defined that his disdain is in the direction of Israel, not Judaism. He additionally accused Israel of “abusing the time period anti-Semitism to intimidate folks like me into silence”.