Pink Floyd Co-Founder Roger Waters: I Can’t Be an Anti-Semite, My Father Fought Nazis

NOTE: This has been tough. Think of all those hours spent listenting to Atom Heart Mother... Will I ever be able to turn them on again? Right now I think not. What is wrong with people? 

from the Algemeiner 3/12/14

In a strongly-worded open letter published Tuesday by The Telegraph, Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters once again denied being an anti-Semite, this time invoking his Nazi-fighting father.

The communique was addressed to British philanthropist Gerald Ronson, chairman of the Jewish Community Security Trust charity, in response to a speech Ronson gave last week in which he singled out Waters as being anti-Israel.

At a London dinner held by the charity, Ronson alluded to the controversial inflatable pig, emblazoned with a Star of David, that Waters floated during recent concerts. In a video from one of the concerts, the pig’s hind quarters also appear to feature a silhouette of a man giving a Nazi salute.

“He insists that he is only anti-Israel, and he isn’t, of course, anti-Semitic,” Ronson said to the audience, among which were politicians Ed Miliband, Dominic Grieve and Ed Balls, and Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis.

Waters, who has long been an advocate of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and has called on his fellow artists to boycott the Jewish state, did not take kindly to Ronson’s comments.  KEEP READING