Roger Waters In Berlin Struts His Stuff As An SS Officer

Roger Waters, former bassist and vocalist for the rock band Pink Floyd, and now a solo performer, has declared “I am not an antisemite” because a court in Frankfurt ruled that he is not. He thinks is a sufficient answer to all of his many critics who, viewing his growing obsession with Israel and with Jews for the past twenty years, have drawn a different conclusion.But in any case, his statement about the Frankfurt court is grossly misleading. It nowhere declared that Waters is “not an antisemite.” The court said instead that “there wasn’t enough grounds to fully ban the performance” he was scheduled to give in Frankfurt. And a spokesperson for the court elaborated further, saying, “It is not for the court to pass judgment on this.” Waters’ performance “did not glorify or relativize the crimes of the Nazis or identify with Nazi racist ideology.” That was all.

Since 2007, at his concerts Waters has often included as a visual accompaniment a huge inflatable pig-shaped balloon, with a giant Star of David affixed. But that “isn’t antisemitism.” He makes rambling remarks, between songs, about the “resistance” of the Palestinians to those terrible Israelis who have stolen their land. He has come out foursquare for the BD movement, which hopes to destroy the Israeli economy. But that, too, “isn’t antisemitism.” More on Waters’ latest squalid performance in Berlin, part of his “This Is Not A Drill” world tour – his “first farewell tour” — can be found here: “Roger Waters dresses up as SS officer, compares Anne Frank to Abu Akleh,” by Tzvi Joffre, Jerusalem Post, May 24, 2023:

Roger Waters dressed up as an SS officer and compared Anne Frank to Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh during a concert at the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Berlin last week.

Nothing says “I am not an antisemite” like dressing up as an SS officer, does it? Or at least that’s what Waters bizarrely wants us to think. You see, take his word for it, he’s making fun of the SS, or rather, making fun of those of his critics who call him an “antisemite” by taking that charge and exaggerating it – turning himself into an SS man — in order to mock his critics. It doesn’t work, however. His appearing on stage in an SS uniform is not amusing, and for someone who has spent the last twenty years obsessively criticizing the Jewish state, and latterly Jews, is in very bad taste. What would you think if some Congressman, or a Talk Show host, or a journalist, showed up in public wearing an SS uniform? Would you conclude that obviously that person is taking a stand against what the SS stood for, or would you conclude, rather, that that person is a malevolent antisemite who hopes to disarm critics by supposedly mocking, but in reality endorsing, what the SS represents? Isn’t Roger Waters just a little too comfortable strutting on stage wearing that SS uniform, which he would no doubt explain away as “making fun of those who ridiculously charge me, Roger Waters, with being an ‘antisemite’ when I am anything but.” I think we should interpret this SS uniform, this Star-of-David pig, this constant ranting about Israel and Jews, as a sign of a pathological condition, the very antisemitism Waters thinks he can wave away by claiming — falsely — that the Frankfurt court’ had absolved him of the charge of antisemitism. It did no such thing.

At the beginning of the show, an announcement was displayed on a screen reading “on a matter of public interest: a court in Frankfurt has ruled that I am not an antisemite,” sparking applause from the crowd. “Just to be clear, I condemn antisemitism unreservedly,” continued the announcement.

Of course he does. Condemns antisemitism unreservedly. What more do you need to know? Didn’t that Frankfurt court clear him of all charges of antisemitism? Oh, it didn’t? Well, it undoubtedly meant to. And why would Waters lie about a thing like that? That’s why it is okay for him to don an SS uniform. That’s why it is okay for him to keep that huge inflatable pig flying above the stage, with Stars of David affixed. That’s why it is okay for him to obsessively focus on Israel as a criminal colonial-settler state that commits genocide, okay for him to endorse BDS, okay for him to suggest that powerful hidden forces, whom he refers to simply as “they,” are out to get him for his support of the Palestinians. And who could those “powerful hidden forces” be, if not the Jews who control so much of the world, and no doubt are determined to silence that intrepid teller of truths, Roger Waters?

Let’s remind ourselves of the kind of things Waters routinely says about Jews and the Jewish state. He claimed in an August 2022 interview that a nefarious “Israel lobby” — meaning British Jews — prevented the election of Jeremy Corbyn in the UK. Waters claimed in the same interview that Israel thinks Jews are superior to everybody else on the planet, saying: “…religious supremacy, the idea that the Jewish people are somehow superior to everybody else on the planet but particularly the Arabs, the Palestinian Arabs…the Israeli state who believe that the Jewish people are superior, more important than any of those people, those people’s lives are worthless.”

In a July 2022 video interview with the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute, Waters demonized Zionists as “settler-colonialist,” insinuated that Jews had no connection to the land of Israel, and referred to Zionists with the antisemitic canard “cabal,” saying “It’s about a bunch of Europeans back in the middle of the 19th century deciding that they were going to take over this piece of land, and kick out anybody that lived there and take it over for themselves and their own little cabal.”

In a May 2021 video, Waters accused Israel of committing genocide, and labeled Israel as an apartheid state.

In May 2019, Waters appeared to compare Israelis to aliens in a rant about Israel hosting the 2019 Eurovision contest.

In an April 2019 op-ed regarding Madonna’s performance in the Israel-hosted Eurovision contest, Waters wrote: “To perform in Israel is a lucrative gig but to do so serves to normalise the occupation, the apartheid, the ethnic cleansing, the incarceration of children, the slaughter of unarmed protesters … all that bad stuff.”

In a series of statements made by Waters in support of BDS, he said: “I’m not sure that there is any much harsher regimes around the world than this [Israel], actually, if you look at it.”

In reference to a question about how Israel uses Hasbara (translation: “explaining” as in public diplomacy) to reject being labeled an apartheid state, Waters said: “The thing about propaganda – again, it’s not hard to go back to Goebbels or the 1930s. You understand the tactic is to tell the big lie as often as possible over and over and over and over again. And people believe it.”

Nota bene: Waters calls Israeli Hasbara “propaganda,” and likens the effort of the Israeli government to make its case to what Goebbels put out. Why do the Israelis always put Roger Waters in mind of the Nazis?

This is a very small sample of his obsession with, and hatred for, the Jewish state, and for those — mainly Jews — who support what Waters calls Israel’s “genocide.”

But Waters wants us all to remember, as he declared at his Berlin appearance, that the court in Frankfurt declared he “is not an antisemite.” That is not what the Court said.

Waters, the former bassist and vocalist of the band Pink Floyd, has repeatedly come under fire for anti-Zionist and antisemitic statements and actions, with his former bandmates rejecting his actions. Waters also has expressed support for Russia amid its invasion of Ukraine.

Shortly after the show [in Berlin] began, a graphic displayed on a crucifix-shaped screen hanging above the stage showed speech bubbles reading “They must think we’re f*%$ing stupid!” and “Who do you mean by they?”

Them, up there in the penthouse, the f&%$ing oligarchy,” continued the speech bubbles. “Ah, you mean the powers that be,” added another speech bubble as a man in a suit drinking wine and riot police with shields with a symbol of crossed hammers were displayed on the screen. Throughout the show, humanoid pigs and shady businessmen “pulling the strings” were displayed on the screen. Social media users and activists condemned the imagery as an “antisemitic dogwhistle.”

So who is included in this “oligarchy,” who constitutes “the powers that be,” who are these shady businessmen “pulling the strings” across the globe? Why, it’s the Jews, those rich bankers right out of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, whom Roger Waters wants to warn us about without forthrightly naming them? Strange, isn’t it, that for all their wealth and power, these Jews have been unable to make the slightest dent in Roger Waters’ career; he’s touring the world, quite unimpeded, to add still more money to his $310 million fortune. Waters is himself very fond of money; he’s far richer than any of his former Pink Floyd bandmates. And he still has time to defend the otherwise defenseless Palestinians. What a guy.