![]() Many well-known musicians, like the producer Brian Eno and Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, have embraced the BDS cause and the anti-Semitic tropes that it incorporates equally, other rock musicians of similar repute, like Nick Cave, deserve a mention for being just as vehement in opposing the effort to socially distance the Jewish state on the international stage. In recent years, the issue of anti-Semitism has intersected with the world of music through the BDS campaign that seeks to isolate Israel. However, far more interesting than the content of such views are the circumstances in which an individual with extraordinary creative talent, like Morrison, comes to embrace them. “They” can be whichever malign social force you want them to be, and in the world of conspiracies, that all too often means the Jews, either as “Jews” or in the guise of “Zionists,” “bankers,” “vaccine patent owners” and similarly generic labels designed to sound sinister. ![]() Who is being referred to by “they” is never actually specified because conspiracy-mongers like Morrison use the dog-whistle technique. “You ever try to go against them, you will be ignored.” And so on, until we get to the chorus: “They control the media, They control the media, They control the media, They control the media.” He also claimed that the “right wing rabbinate” is responsible for promoting bigotry against non-Jews among Israelis.“They own the media, they control the stories we are told,” sings Morrison. ![]() In a 2013 interview with the left wing website Counterpunch, he suggested that some artists don’t take controversial positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict partly because “the Jewish lobby is extraordinary powerful” in the U.S. At an August 2018 concert in Poland, Waters projected the phrase “resist Israeli anti-Semitism” onto the stage where he was performing. That same month, he also headlined an event at the University of Massachusetts sponsored by a number of pro-BDS student organizations. In May 2019, Waters appeared to compare Israelis to aliens in a rant about Israel hosting the 2019 Eurovision contest. This is not the first time Waters has used antisemitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric. (According to a Pew research report from 2017, a majority of American Jews state that they are “attached to Israel and that caring about Israel is either ‘essential’ or ‘important’ to what being Jewish means to them.) In the interview, Waters also directly attacked Zionism, describing it as “an ugly stain” which “needs to be gently removed.” This sweeping language about Zionism, which exists in a variety of iterations across diverse segments of the political spectrum, is an implicit attack on millions of Jews who incorporate a connection with Israel into their religious, cultural, or social identities. is being controlled by Jewish Republican donor Sheldon Adelson, whom he describes as a “puppet master” who is “filling the coffers and pulling all the strings” on U.S. In a recent interview with Palestinian news agency Shehab, Waters employed a range of antisemitic tropes, claiming that the U.S. ![]() ADL has repeatedly called out Waters for his hateful rhetoric, dating back to an open 2013 letter suggesting that his anti-Israel views may be colored by antisemitism. He has refused to perform in Israel and urged fellow artists to follow suit, and has often used inflammatory rhetoric against the country. For nearly two decades, rock music icon Roger Waters has been one of the most prominent and outspoken supporters of the BDS movement.
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