Roger Waters defends use of pig and Star of David, denies he’s anti-Semitic

Roger Waters takes a defensive stance following a statement by Rabbi Abraham Cooper, who called the Pink Floyd co-founder an “open hater of Jews.”

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Star of David 311 (photo credit: (Dan Lowenstein))
Star of David 311
(photo credit: (Dan Lowenstein))
Roger Waters has taken a defensive stance following a statement by Rabbi Abraham Cooper, who called the Pink Floyd co-founder an “open hater of Jews.”
The associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights group, Cooper saw a video from Waters’s July 18 show in Belgium featuring a giant inflatable pig marked with a Star of David and released a statement denouncing the bassist for the offensive imagery. He asked entertainers to denounce “his anti-Semitism and bigotry” in an article on Algemeiner.com.
“Often I can ignore these attacks, but Rabbi Cooper’s accusations are so wild and bigoted, they demand a response,” Waters wrote on his Facebook page before defending himself and his actions, Rolling Stone reported.
Waters refuted that he is anti-Semitic by pointing out that the Anti- Defamation League said they didn’t believe Waters had “anti-Semitic intent.” The crucifix, crescent and star, hammer and sickle, Shell Oil logo and McDonalds sign were also stamped on the pig.
As for being “Jew-hating,” Waters pointed out his daughter-in-law is Jewish, “and so, in consequence, I’m told, are [my grandsons].”
With regard to being labeled a Nazi sympathizer, the 69-year-old rocker wrote that his father was killed during World War II while fighting the Nazis, and that he was brought up to have contempt for the Nazis’ actions and ideology. He added that his mother spent her life supporting political causes that promoted equality and freedom for people of varying beliefs and ethnicity, and that he has tried to follow in her footsteps.
Waters has long been a vocal critic of what he considers the Israeli government’s oppression of the Arabs who live in the country and what are termed its occupied territories and has called for a boycott of Israel until it changes its policies. He said that is why he included the Star of David on the inflatable pig, which he called a symbol of “the evil of errant government.”
Further defending his position, he added, “To peacefully protest against Israel’s racist domestic and foreign policies is not anti-Semitic.”


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