Roger Waters fights back against claims of anti-Semitism |
Written by Matt | |
Wednesday, 06 October 2010 | |
Roger Waters has been driven to defend himself from allegations of anti-Semitism, after being accused by Abraham Foxman, the director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of using images in his stage show that promoted stereotypes. During "Goodbye Blue Sky", a B52 bomber projected on to a backdrop is shown dropping a number of different symbols including the Star of David and a dollar sign, which Foxman said echoed the stereotype that Jews were avaricious. Roger felt compelled to set the record straight in an open letter to The Independent newspaper, published this week (and shown below). "I watch the workings of politics here and particularly the Republican Party. They work with the axiom that you can tell as many lies as you want – and often the bigger the better – and eventually they will believed," he said. "If I don't respond people will see the story and will come to believe I'm anti-Semitic, and I'm not. Nothing could be further from the truth." UPDATE, October 8th: Rolling Stone report today that the video sequence used on October 6th at Madison Square Garden was adjusted so that the Stars of David were now followed by Mercedes symbols. Roger said that the images chosen were "representative of religious and national and commercial interests, all of which have a malign influence on our lives and prevent us from treating each other decently", and accused the ADL of painting critics as anti-Semitic. "It's a screen that they hide behind. I don't think they should be taken seriously on that. You can attack Israeli policy without being anti-Jewish," he said. "It's like saying if you criticise the US policy you are being anti-Christian. I'm critical of the Israeli policy of occupying Palestinian land and their policy of building settlements, which is entirely illegal under international law, and also of ghettoising the people whose land they are building on. It's that foreign policy I'm against. It's nothing to do with the religion." He noted that he has received a lot of support from Jews: "There is a large movement inside Israel, young, Jewish Israeli citizens, and old ones too, who are against their government's policy in the same way as in England when Tony Blair took us to war against Iraq on the coat-tails of George Bush. I've had an extraordinary response. We've had over 1,000 comments on my Facebook page. They are all extremely supportive. A lot of the comments I've had have been from Jews." His letter to 'The Independent':
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