The Israeli captive said the Palestinian Resistance members treated her “well and attended to all her needs.”
Israeli captive Yocheved Lifshitz, who was released by the Qassam Brigades yesterday, said that the Al-Qassam Brigades were very friendly towards them, took care of them, and provided them with medicine.
During the press conference held in a hospital in “Tel Aviv”, she was asked why she shook hands with a member of the Hamas movement, she said it was because “They treated us very well.”
She added that the first thing the resistance fighters told them was that they were people who “believed in the Quran and would not harm them”, adding that they would get the same treatment the resistance members were getting.
She said that each of the five hostages in her group was looked after by a doctor, adding that there was also a paramedic who kept track of the medications.
On the other hand, the Israeli Kan channel quoted sources from the Israeli public relations office saying that “allowing Yocheved Lifshitz (the released captive) to make a direct statement was a mistake.”
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This comes after Abu Obeida announced on Friday that the Brigades released two captive US citizens also on “humanitarian grounds”.
"لدينا مجموعة محتجزين من جنسيات مختلفة تم جلبهم أثناء المعركة ولم تكن هناك فرصة للتحقق من هوياتهم، نعتبرهم ضيوف لدينا ونسعى لحمايتهم ونتمنى أن يبقوا سالمين"
It is noteworthy that Abu Obeida announced the release of two American detainees for humanitarian reasons in response to Qatari efforts.
“In response to Qatar’s efforts, we released two detained US women (mother and daughter) on humanitarian grounds to prove to the US people and the world that the allegations of [US President Joe] Biden and his fascist administration are unfounded lies,” Abu Obeida said in a statement released by Hamas.
Releasing Lifshitz comes after the Hamas movement accused the Israeli occupation of assassinating Palestinian prisoner and senior Hamas movement member Omar Hamza Draghma on Monday while on administrative detention in “Israel’s” “Megiddo” prison.
Draghma, the 58-year-old leader from Tubas, was arrested alongside his son at the start of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, according to Palestinian sources, as part of a detention campaign led by the Israeli Occupation Forces across the West Bank.q
He called on all the countries to warn their citizens against fighting alongside the Israeli army, confirming that the Resistance would release foreign prisoners “if the necessary conditions are met.”
Last week, Abu Obeida revealed that the Resistance is holding captives of different nationalities, adding that there was no opportunity to verify their identities amid Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, vowing to keep them safe and treat them well, keeping in mind the indiscriminate Israeli strikes and shelling on Gaza.
Barcelona mayor Ada Colau announces that the European metropolis will put all institutional relations with Israel on hold. (Photo: Lyle Hausman, Supplied)
– Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His latest book, co-edited with Ilan Pappé, is “Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak out”. Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website iswww.ramzybaroud.net
A succession of events starting in Barcelona, Spain, in February, and followed in Liège, Belgium, and Oslo, Norway, in April sent a strong message to Israel: The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) is alive and well.
In Barcelona, the city’s Mayor canceled a twinning agreement with the Israeli city of Tel Aviv. The decision was not an impulsive one, although Ada Colau is well-known for her principled positions on many issues. It was, however, an outcome of a fully democratic process, initiated by a proposal submitted by left-wing parties at the city council.
A few weeks after the decision was made, specifically on February 8, a pro-Israeli legal organization known as The Lawfare Project, announced its intentions to file a lawsuit against Colau because she, supposedly, “acted beyond the scope of her authority”.
The Lawfare Project meant to communicate a message to other city councils in Spain, and the rest of Europe, that there will be serious legal repercussions to boycotting Israel. To the organization’s – and Israel’s – big surprise, however, other cities quickly advanced their own boycott procedures. They include the Belgian city of Liège and Norway’s capital city, Oslo.
Liège’s local leadership did not try to conceal the reasons behind their decision. The city council, it was reported, had decided to suspend relations with the Israeli authorities for running a regime “of apartheid, colonization and military occupation”. That move was backed by a majority vote at the council, proving once more that the pro-Palestinian moral stance was fully compliant with a democratic process.
Oslo is a particularly interesting case. It was there that the ‘peace process’ resulted in the Oslo Accords in 1993, which ultimately divided the Palestinians while giving Israel a political cover to continue with its illegal practices, while claiming that it has no peace partner.
But Oslo is no longer committed to the empty slogans of the past. In June 2022, the Norwegian government declared its intention of denying the label “Made in Israel” to goods produced in illegal Israeli Jewish settlements in Occupied Palestine.
Though Jewish settlements are illegal under international law, Europe did not mind doing business – in fact, lucrative business – with these colonies over the years. In November 2019, the European Court of Justice, however, resolved that all goods produced in “Israel-occupied areas” had to be labeled as such, so as not to mislead consumers. The Court’s decision was a watered-down version of what Palestinians had expected: a complete boycott, if not of Israel as a whole, at least of its illegal settlements.
However, the decision still served a purpose. It provided yet another legal base for boycott, thus empowering pro-Palestine civil society organizations, and reminding Israel that its influence in Europe is not as limitless as Tel Aviv wants to believe.
The most that Israel could do in response is to issue angry statements, along with haphazard accusations of anti-Semitism. In August 2022, Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt requested a meeting with then-Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, during the former’s visit to Israel. Lapid refused. Not only did such arrogance make a little difference in Norway’s stance on the Israeli occupation of Palestine, but it also opened yet more margins for pro-Palestinian activists to be more proactive, leading to Oslo’s decision in April to ban imports of goods made in illegal settlements.
The BDS movement explained, on its website, the meaning of Oslo’s decision: “Norway’s capital … announced that it will not trade in goods and services produced in areas that are illegally occupied in violation of international law.” In practice, this means that Oslo’s “procurement policy will exclude companies that directly or indirectly contribute to Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise – a war crime under international law.”
Keeping these rapid developments in mind, The Lawfare Project would now have to expand its legal cases to include Liège, Oslo and an ever-growing list of city councils that are actively boycotting Israel. But, even then, there are no guarantees that the outcome of such litigations will serve Israel in any way. In fact, the opposite is more likely to be true.
A case in point was the recent decision by the cities of Frankfurt and Munich in Germany to cancel music concerts of pro-Palestinian rock and roll legend, Roger Waters, as part of his ‘This is Not a Drill’ tour. Frankfurt justified its decision by branding Waters as “one of the world’s most well-known anti-Semites”. The bizarre and unfounded claim was rejected outright by a German civil court which, on April 24, ruled in favor of Waters.
Indeed, while a growing number of European cities are siding with Palestine, those who side with Israeli apartheid find it difficult to defend or even maintain their position, simply because the former predicate their stances on international law, while the latter on twisted and convenient interpretations of anti-Semitism.
What does all of this mean for the BDS movement?
In an article published in Foreign Policy magazine last May, Steven Cook reached a hasty conclusion that the BDS movement “has already lost”, because, according to his inference, efforts to boycott Israel have made no impact “in the halls of government”.
While BDS is a political movement that is subject to miscalculations and mistakes, it is also a grassroots campaign that labors to achieve political ends through incremental, measured changes. To succeed over time, such campaigns must first engage ordinary people on the street, activists at universities, in houses of worship, etc., all done through calculated, long-term strategies, themselves devised by local and national civil society collectives and organizations.
BDS continues to be a success story, and the latest critical decisions made in Spain, Belgium and Norway attest to the fact that grassroots efforts do pay dividends.
There is no denying that the road ahead is long and arduous. It will certainly have its twists, turns and, yes, occasional setbacks. But this is the nature of national liberation struggles. They often come at a high cost and great sacrifice. But, with popular resistance at home and growing international support and solidarity abroad, Palestinian freedom should, in fact, be possible.
A succession of events starting in Barcelona, Spain, in February, and followed in Liège, Belgium, and Oslo, Norway, in April sent a strong message to Israel: The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) is alive and well.
In Barcelona, the city’s Mayor canceled a twinning agreement with the Israeli city of Tel Aviv. The decision was not an impulsive one, although Ada Colau is well-known for her principled positions on many issues. It was, however, an outcome of a fully democratic process initiated by a proposal submitted by left-wing parties at the city council.
A few weeks after the decision was made, specifically on February 8, a pro-Israeli legal organization known as The Lawfare Project, announced its intentions to file a lawsuit against Colau because she supposedly “acted beyond the scope of her authority.”
The Lawfare Project was meant to communicate a message to other city councils in Spain, and the rest of Europe, that there will be serious legal repercussions to boycotting Israel. To the organization’s – and Israel’s – big surprise, however, other cities quickly advanced their own boycott procedures. They include the Belgian city of Liège and Norway’s capital city, Oslo.
Liège’s local leadership did not try to conceal the reasons behind their decision. The city council, it was reported, had decided to suspend relations with the Israeli authorities for running a regime “of apartheid, colonization and military occupation.” That move was backed by a majority vote at the council, proving once more that the pro-Palestinian moral stance was fully compliant with a democratic process.
Oslo is a particularly interesting case. It was there that the ‘peace process’ resulted in the Oslo Accords in 1993, which ultimately divided the Palestinians while giving Israel a political cover to continue with its illegal practices while claiming that it has no peace partner.
But Oslo is no longer committed to the empty slogans of the past. In June 2022, the Norwegian government declared its intention to deny the label “Made in Israel” to goods produced in illegal Israeli Jewish settlements in Occupied Palestine.
Though Jewish settlements are illegal under international law, Europe did not mind doing business – in fact, lucrative business – with these colonies over the years. In November 2019, the European Court of Justice, however, resolved that all goods produced in “Israel-occupied areas” had to be labeled as such so as not to mislead consumers. The Court’s decision was a watered-down version of what Palestinians had expected: a complete boycott, if not of Israel as a whole, at least of its illegal settlements.
However, the decision still served a purpose. It provided yet another legal base for boycott, thus empowering pro-Palestine civil society organizations and reminding Israel that its influence in Europe is not as limitless as Tel Aviv wants to believe.
The most that Israel could do in response is to issue angry statements, along with haphazard accusations of anti-Semitism. In August 2022, Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt requested a meeting with then-Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid during the former’s visit to Israel. Lapid refused. Not only did such arrogance make a little difference in Norway’s stance on the Israeli occupation of Palestine, but it also opened yet more margins for pro-Palestinian activists to be more proactive, leading to Oslo’s decision in April to ban imports of goods made in illegal settlements.
The BDS movement explained, on its website, the meaning of Oslo’s decision: “Norway’s capital … announced that it will not trade in goods and services produced in areas that are illegally occupied in violation of international law.” In practice, this means that Oslo’s “procurement policy will exclude companies that directly or indirectly contribute to Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise – a war crime under international law.”
Keeping these rapid developments in mind, The Lawfare Project would now have to expand its legal cases to include Liège, Oslo and an ever-growing list of city councils that are actively boycotting Israel. But, even then, there are no guarantees that the outcome of such litigations will serve Israel in any way. In fact, the opposite is more likely to be true.
A case in point was the recent decision by the cities of Frankfurt and Munich in Germany to cancel music concerts of pro-Palestinian rock and roll legend Roger Waters as part of his ‘This is Not a Drill’ tour. Frankfurt justified its decision by branding Waters as “one of the world’s most well-known anti-Semites.” The bizarre and unfounded claim was rejected outright by a German civil court which, on April 24, ruled in favor of Waters.
Indeed, while a growing number of European cities are siding with Palestine, those who side with Israeli apartheid find it difficult to defend or even maintain their position simply because the former predicate their stances on international law, while the latter on twisted and convenient interpretations of anti-Semitism.
What does all of this mean for the BDS movement?
In an article published in Foreign Policy magazine last May, Steven Cook reached a hasty conclusion that the BDS movement “has already lost”, because, according to his inference, efforts to boycott Israel have made no impact “in the halls of government.”
While BDS is a political movement that is subject to miscalculations and mistakes, it is also a grassroots campaign that labors to achieve political ends through incremental, measured changes. To succeed over time, such campaigns must first engage ordinary people on the street, activists at universities, in houses of worship, etc., all done through calculated, long-term strategies, themselves devised by local and national civil society collectives and organizations.
BDS continues to be a success story, and the latest critical decisions made in Spain, Belgium and Norway attest to the fact that grassroots efforts do pay dividends.
There is no denying that the road ahead is long and arduous. It will certainly have its twists, turns and, yes, occasional setbacks. But this is the nature of national liberation struggles. They often come at a high cost and great sacrifice. But, with popular resistance at home and growing international support and solidarity abroad, Palestinian freedom should, in fact, be possible.
Roger Waters is facing pushback from Germany. City authorities have canceled his upcoming concert over claims the Pink Floyd frontman is anti-Semitic. Yet activists say his experience is not an isolated incident when it comes to support for Palestine.
In February, Frankfurt’s City Council canceled Waters’s concert scheduled for May 28, stating in a press release that the musician “is considered one of the most widely spread anti-Semites in the world.” City officials cited Waters’ advocacy for a cultural boycott of Israel as one of the reasons for his alleged anti-Semitism. When reached for comment, Frankfurt City Council referred MintPress News to its aforementioned press release.
Waters responded by pursuing legal action against the city for his event cancellation. “My lawyers are taking steps to ensure that my concerts in Munich and Frankfurt in May 2023 take place as contracted,” Waters said.
Munich had filed a motion to cancel his upcoming concert but voted against the measure on March 22. In a statement to MintPress News, the city council said canceling Waters’ concert “would be illegal and would violate supreme court decisions.” A similar motion was tabled in Cologne.
Waters also addressed the anti-Semitism allegations and his views on Israel. In a statement, Waters said:
I want to state for the record and once and for all that I am not and never have been antisemitic and nothing that anyone can say or publish will alter that. My well-publicized views relate entirely to the policies and actions of the Israeli government and not with the peoples of Israel.”
In addition to Waters’ legal threats, more than 20,000 artists, writers, and public figures have signed a petition demanding Waters perform in Frankfurt.
“The officials vilifying Waters are engaging in a dangerous campaign that purposely conflates criticism of Israel’s illegal and unjust policies with antisemitism,” the petition reads. “This conflation perpetuates the antisemitic trope which presents Jews as a monolith who blindly support Israel.”
CRACKING DOWN ON BDS SUPPORT IN GERMANY
Yet Waters is not alone in facing opposition from German authorities over his support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), a Palestinian-led movement advocating for a collective economic response against Israel. In fact, in recent years, a number of activists, scholars, and artists have been attacked in Germany for their criticism of Israel and support for BDS.
In February, the “Structural Change of Property” Collaborative Research Center at the University of Jena told University of British Columbia Professor Brenna Bhandar that they did not want to hold her planned talk in April due to her support for BDS. She had been invited to participate in the institution’s Mercator fellowship.
On March 8, the Israel-Palestine news website Mondoweiss published an open letter — signed by numerous scholars — against the center’s decision.
“The retraction of the public component of the Mercator fellowship on the basis of Prof. Bhandar’s personal commitment to solidarity with a call from Palestinian civil society is a glaring and unjustified breach of principles of academic freedom,” the letter’s authors wrote.
German-based activist group Jewish Voice for Just Peace in the Middle East had their bank account closed in 2019 because the organization supports BDS. The group could have their account reopened if they were examined by an anti-Semitism expert to determine if they were indeed anti-Semitic, but Jewish Voice declined to engage in that activity.
More recently, in the last year, Hamburg’s anti-Semitism commissioner, Stefan Hensel, began targeting artist Adam Broomberg for his BDS support.
Adam Broomberg, left, and Hamburg’s anti-Semitism commissioner, Stefan Hensel, right
The fresh wave of attacks against BDS supporters in Germany comes as a result of a parliamentary resolution passed in 2019 condemning BDS as anti-Semitic and cutting off funding to organizations that actively support the movement.
The resolution was passed with the help of pro-Israel groups, according to an investigation by German newspaper Der Spiegel. The report suggests that local organizations like the Middle East Peace Forum and Werte Initiative (Values Initiative) worked with Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs to promote the resolution.
The Strategic Affairs Ministry, however, denied the claims, telling Israeli newspaper Haaretz that they had “no connection to the German Parliament’s decision, which it views as a decision that is principled, ethical, and important.”
Despite the resolution being non-binding, meaning it is merely an expression of opinion from Germany’s parliament, Wieland Hoban, chairman of Jewish Voice, said it has emboldened sects of German society to attack BDS and treat it as if it is illegal.
Hoban described that the resolution has created a “culture of denunciation” in Germany and generated widespread paranoia in cultural institutions over losing funding for being associated with BDS supporters.
After losing his mother in December, Broomberg came back to Berlin from South Africa to find an online smear campaign lodged at him by Hamburg’s anti-Semitism commissioner, Hensel.
On social media and in newspapers, Hensel described Broomberg as someone who “repeatedly defames [Israel] as an apartheid state and advocates a boycott against Israel” and “does not shy away from legitimizing terror against Jews.”
With these allegations, Broomberg said he was denied a teaching position, lost a €30,000 (around U.S. $32,000) grant, was pulled from an art show, and even received a death threat.
“Essentially, I have been canceled in Germany,” Broomberg told MintPress News. “I am not eligible for grants. My work won’t be shown in public institutions.”
However, Broomberg cautions treating Hensel as a lone actor in this anti-BDS war. Instead, he emphasizes Hensel is just a faction of the German state. “He is just representative of the German state’s strategy and attitude,” Broomberg said. Despite the slander, Broomberg declined to pursue legal action and is instead continuing to focus on his activism and work.
“The reason why Hensel is attacking me is because of the work I’m doing both on the ground here and around Palestine,” he said. “And what he’s doing is diverting me away from that.”
For Jewish Voice’s Hoban, the BDS resolution may have emboldened the Israel lobby in Germany, but it has also invigorated pro-Palestine activists. “On the one hand, it means that our opponents have a lot of power to silence us and to silence Palestinians. But at the same time, I feel that it creates an opportunity to draw attention to conflict,” Hoban told MintPress News. “So then not to be demoralized by some canceling, but to take that as something to talk about in order to make the case.”
After a highly acclaimed run in North America, Roger Waters will take his “This Is Not a Drill” tour across Europe. The long journey includes shows in Germany, with the final concert in the country originally planned to take place in Frankfurt on May 28. On February 24, however, Frankfurt’s city council and the Hessian state government announced the cancellation of the Frankfurt concert, for “persistent anti-Israel behavior,” and called Waters an antisemite.
The cancellation of Waters’s concert is a threat to free speech and artistic freedom. It is designed to silence legitimate criticism of Israel’s government emanating from the world human rights community and within Israel itself. Waters’s music has captivated the world for more than five decades. Over that time, he has also become a respected human rights advocate. In response to the decision by Frankfurt’s city council, artists and human rights leaders, including Peter Gabriel, Julie Christie, Noam Chomsky, Susan Sarandon, Alia Shawkat, and Glenn Greenwald, have signed a petition calling on the German government to uncancel the concert.
In a more civilized world, Frankfurt would be giving him an award for his courage, not trying to silence him with state censorship.
To be clear, the position of Waters regarding the disparate treatment by the Israeli government of Jews and Palestinians—with numerous legal policies and laws that favor Jews over Palestinians—is well within the mainstream of the international human rights community.
A range of prominent human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, as well as United Nations agencies and experts such as the UN special rapporteur, argue that Israel’s policy has created an “apartheid” state within Israel through its occupation of the Palestinian territories. Indeed, in 2021, the respected Israeli human rights group B’Tselem issued a strong statement calling the Israeli government “a regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea” and concluding, “This is apartheid.” The statements Waters has made about Israel are entirely in line with these criticisms from these respected organizations and institutions.
The conflation of criticism of Israel and antisemitism is dangerous and perpetuates the common antisemitic perspective that all Jews monolithically support Israel. Because antisemitism is a real issue, its weaponization and distortion to stifle legitimate criticism of Israel is reckless, and undermines the fight against antisemitism.
The Frankfurt City Council’s statement offered no evidence for its claim except that Waters has “repeatedly called for a cultural boycott of Israel and drew comparisons to the apartheid regime in South Africa.” The statement about the “cultural boycott of Israel” is a reference to Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS), the Palestinian-led movement launched in 2005 that has since gained significant support across the globe.
We reached out to Waters for his response to the campaign against him, and he told us: “My platform is simple: it is implementation of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights for all our brothers and sisters in the world including those between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. My support of universal human rights is universal. It is not antisemitism, which is odious and racist and which, like all forms of racism, I condemn unreservedly.”
The official equation of criticism of Israeli policy with antisemitism is problematic, but it is not new in contemporary Germany. In May 2019, the German Parliament passed a nonbinding resolution that associated BDS with antisemitism. This resolution followed a series of attacks on organizations, including numerous Jewish groups (such as the Germany-based group Jewish Voice for Just Peace in the Middle East) whose advocacy on behalf of Palestinians was, at the same moment, being classified by the Israeli government as antisemitic.
In response to this targeting of critics of Israel’s government over its mistreatment of Palestinians, more than 90 Jewish scholars and intellectuals signed an open letter in defense of Jewish Voice for Just Peace in the Middle East. The last line of that letter called upon “the members of German civil society to fight antisemitism relentlessly while maintaining a clear distinction between criticism of the state of Israel, harsh as it may be, and antisemitism, and to preserve free speech for those who reject Israeli repression against the Palestinian people and insist that it comes to an end.”
In its attack on Waters, the Frankfurt City Council mimicked the current thinking followed by the extremist Israeli government in its weaponization of antisemitism to try to undermine critics of its official narrative.
The attack on Waters by the Frankfurt City Council is part of a disturbing pattern in contemporary Germany. The Berlin-based Jewish photographer Adam Broomberg, who is well-known for his work on the cruelty and irrationality of violence, found himself being targeted by the city of Hamburg’s antisemitism commissioner, Stefan Hensel.
Hensel has used his social media and various newspapers to attack anyone who supports the BDS movement as being “antisemitic.” His campaign against Broomberg raised the ire of the photographer, who was born in South Africa and who has an intimate and very personal understanding of apartheid. Broomberg told the art magazine Hyperallergic that he was confounded by this attack: “For a commissioner of antisemitism, for his first and most vehement and powerful attack to be on a Jew and to put a Jew’s life and profession at risk, is totally ironic. … I just buried my mother who knew the Holocaust and I come back and I’m accused of being a hateful antisemite advocating for terrorism against Jews. I couldn’t be more Jewish,” he said. “It’s affected me profoundly.”
In early March 2023, Hensel posted a photograph of Roger Waters on Instagram in the film version of his 2010-2013 concert tour “The Wall.” Alongside the picture, Hensel wrote: “The motto should be: ‘Roger Waters is not welcome in Hamburg.’” Adam Broomberg responded on Twitter that Hensel’s image of Waters appearing in character as a fascist villain was taken out of context from an “undeniably anti-war film by Waters and [Sean] Evans called ‘The Wall’ to depict him as a Nazi in an attempt to cancel his concert.”
This distortion, Broomberg wrote, is an example of “German propaganda.”
In July 2022, South Africa’s Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor while addressing a meeting of the Palestinian Heads of Mission in Africa said that “The Palestinian narrative evokes experiences of South Africa’s own history of racial segregation and oppression.” Reflecting on the findings of human rights reports and UN documents, Pandor said: “These reports are significant in raising global awareness of the conditions that Palestinians are subjected to, and they provide credence and support to an overwhelming body of factual evidence, all pointing to the fact that the State of Israel is committing crimes of apartheid and persecution against Palestinians.”
Nothing that prominent international artists like Waters or Broomberg have said would be alien to the content of these reports or different from what Naledi Pandor said at that meeting in Pretoria. Indeed, everything she said mirrors the library of UN resolutions demonstrating the illegality of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the apartheid conditions being faced by Palestinians inside Israel and its territories. The attack by the Frankfurt City Council on Waters is not actually an effort to call out antisemitism; it is, rather, an attack on the human rights of Palestinians.
Katie Halper is a writer, filmmaker, and the host of the “Katie Halper Show,” a weekly YouTube show, podcast, and WBAI radio show. She is the co-host of the “Useful Idiots” podcast and YouTube show and the director of the forthcoming documentary “Commie Camp.” Her writing has appeared in places like the Guardian, the Nation, New York magazine, and Comedy Central, and she has appeared on MSNBC, Fox, Rising, and more. She is a member of Jewish Voice for Peace.
Pink Floyd rock legend Roger Waters made an impressive and impassioned plea for peace at the UN Security Council this week. The English-born singer-songwriter was invited by Russia to address the specially convened forum on the prospects of finding a peaceful resolution in Ukraine.
Waters spoke eloquently and from the heart for over 14 minutes via a video link to the gathering at the United Nations’ headquarters in New York. Much respect is due to him for his strident call for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine as well as for his general anti-war message on behalf of the world’s “voiceless majority”.
The 79-year-old artist has been a life-long advocate for peace and human rights, and many people around the world admire not only his musical creations but also his integrity and indefatigable defense of human rights. As he noted during his speech, his own father was killed in action during the Second World War when he was just an infant in 1944, and so he has been “touched by war”.
To his eternal credit, Waters has not taken megastar retirement in luxurious, mindless oblivion. He has remained as politically active and outspoken as when he was a younger artist, critical of exploitative corporate capitalist power and imperialist warmongering. With fierce integrity and poignant compassion, he has championed the cause of the Palestinian people and the freedom of publisher Julian Assange locked up in a British prison, among other causes. His music and artistry are a holistic expression of his pathos and politics.
He may have been invited by Russia to address the UNSC this week, but Waters showed himself to be no “apologist” for Moscow. During his speech, he claimed that Russia had “illegally invaded” Ukraine in February 2022, and he forthrightly condemned that. He is entitled to his opinion.
Nevertheless, he also condemned the provocations by the United States and NATO in building up Ukraine with armaments in the years before the conflict erupted last February. He denounced the war profiteering by Western powers from their relentless and reckless supplying of weapons to Ukraine which, he said, was risking a nuclear apocalypse if it spiralled into a bigger all-out confrontation.
The reactions to this noble intervention by Roger Waters were telling. While he spoke to the UNSC, the envoys from Ukraine fiddled on their phones, showing contemptible disrespect. Following his speech, the Ukrainian and the American representatives mocked Waters for peddling “Russian propaganda”.
There was little reporting in the Western media of his words. Some reportage tried to undermine his sincere calls for peace and his blistering critique of the warmongering capitalist system by focusing on what they claimed was his justification for Russian military action in Ukraine after he had said the war was “not unprovoked”.
Hardly surprising. Western mainstream news media have become so debased as propaganda channels that anyone who dares to discuss the historical context of the conflict is immediately smeared as a “Kremlin stooge”. Their media function is to prevent any intelligent, truthful understanding of how this conflict manifested or what is really at stake. The same goes for other conflicts and in particular, the next one Washington is fomenting with China.
Waters deserves immense praise for his courageous, unstinting calls for peace and for a broader understanding of the nature and causes of the conflict in Ukraine. But the dismissive response to his supplications illustrates clearly that the Western warmongers and their NeoNazi regime in Kiev have no intention or will to find a just peace. They are, to quote that classic song by Pink Floyd, “comfortably numb” to any feeling of justice and peace.
Thus, lamentably, his demands for an immediate ceasefire are naive. While many people around the world will admire the call for peace, it is misleading to not fully realize how the conflict in Ukraine came about and why it is being pursued by Western powers. Such appeals will not prevail against the war fundamentalists. Indeed, any ceasefire without resolving the root causes of the war would only prolong the conflict by allowing a rearming of the NATO-sponsored Kiev regime against Russia. Besides, Washington and its Western lackeys are “agreement incapable” and have no integrity.
The most effective immediate way to end the conflict is for Western powers to stop fueling it with the madcap armaments they are piling up in Ukraine. Washington and its European allies are embarking on endless rounds of supplying more offensive weapons. They have already committed to deploying battlefield tanks and this week there was more talk of supplying advanced NATO fighter jets as well as long-range missiles that can hit deep inside Russian territory. The lavish indulgence this week by Britain, France, Germany and the rest of the European Union towards Kiev’s incessant demands for more weapons shows that there is no interest in a genuine diplomatic dialogue for a peaceful settlement.
The European elite political class like their masters in Washington have dangerously distorted the conflict in Ukraine into one of absolute necessity for defeating alleged Russian aggression and “defending democracy”.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky – whose regime in Kiev is up to its eyes in corruption from the arms bazaar in that country as well as infested with Nazi-adulating paramilitaries – was feted in Europe this week with the preposterous claim that Ukraine was defending European values from Russian barbarity. The echo of Third Reich ideology and Russophobic propaganda here is truly astounding.
This war is an existential one. On the one hand, the defeat of Russia is being painted (falsely) as the ultimate challenge to supposed Western civilization. The West has made it a zero-sum contest based on false premises. On the other hand, a real existential issue is that the war is all about preserving American hegemony and propping up the floundering Western imperial global order. “Unipolar world domination,” as Roger Waters put it.
The blockbuster report this week by veteran journalist Seymour Hersh revealing well-founded allegations that the U.S. military blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines from Russia to Germany last September demonstrates that this war in Ukraine is only a part of a bigger geopolitical conflict. The Western media’s relative silence over what is ostensibly a staggering act of international terrorism by the Americans and their European minions is as damning as it is instructive.
Hersh credibly claims that the plot to sabotage the pipelines – signed off by the Biden administration – predated the Russian intervention in Ukraine. When added to ignominious admissions by European leaders that there was no intention of honoring the 2014-15 Minsk peace agreements because the tacit objective was always to weaponize Ukraine for an eventual showdown against Russia, then we begin to understand that the intrinsic agenda for war makes a mockery of the Western narrative about “defending Ukraine from Russian aggression”.
Appeals like that of Roger Waters – albeit principled and well-intentioned – are in the final analysis naive and, regrettably, futile. Such appeals presuppose that Western elites and their warmongering system are capable of peaceful and moral reasoning. They are not.
Russia had a legal and moral duty to defend the ethnic Russian people of former Ukraine from eight years of NATO-backed aggression after the CIA-backed coup d’état in Kiev in 2014. That NATO aggression will not be stopped now by moralistic appeals. For we are talking about a system that is tantamount to a rabid dog that needs to be put down. And we are not talking about a system that is limited to the vile Kiev regime. We are talking about the entire U.S.-led capitalist system and its imperialist war machine. A system that has ravaged the world for eight decades since the end of World War Two.
Or to put it another way by way of taking issue with a contradiction in Roger Water’s speech: you can’t appeal to a “bully” to do the right thing. You have to punch the bully in the face.
On the bigger historical picture, it can be increasingly seen now in this present time that the Second World War did not bring about an end to Nazism, fascism and imperialism, especially as Western history books would narrate. The end of that horrendous war was only a respite from the disease. There will be no peace in Ukraine or anywhere else until that disease is terminated – once and for all.
Note: reading these moronic questions+statements only confirms to me my conviction that Europe is sub-pathetic and deserves what will come its way. This is sad, of course, but indisputable. As for Roger Waters, his willingness to reconsider his views only inspires even more admiration in me. Andrei
Against the backdrop of the outrageous and despicable smear campaign by the ISRAELI LOBBY to denounce me as an ANTI-SEMITE, WHICH I AM NOT, NEVER HAVE BEEN and NEVER WILL BE. Against he backdrop of them trying to silence me because I lend my voice to the seventy five year old fight for equal human rights for all my brothers and sisters in Palestine/Israel, irrespective of their ethnicity, religion or nationality. Against the backdrop, of the ISRAELI LOBBY trying to cancel my 85% SOLD OUT series of concerts in Germany, the National Newspaper BERLINER ZEITUNG, has today, courageously, published an in depth interview with me in their Saturday Magazine. Thank you so much gentlemen.
And to MY FANS who have purchased tickets for my forthcoming shows in Europe,
FEAR NOT! I AM DEFINITELY COMING.
WILD HORSES COULDN’T KEEP ME AWAY
AND NEITHER CAN THIS APARTHEID RABBLE
THE TRUTH WILL SET US FREE.
LOVE
R.
Interview translated into English from German:
Roger Waters can rightly claim to be the mastermind behind Pink Floyd. He came up with the concept of and wrote all the lyrics for the masterpiece “The Dark Side of the Moon”. He wrote the albums “Animals”, “The Wall” and “The Final Cut” single-handedly. On his current tour “This Is Not A Drill”, which comes to Germany in May, he therefore wants to express that legacy to a large extent and play songs from Pink Floyd’s classic phase. The problem: Because of controversial statements he has made about the war in Ukraine and the politics of the state of Israel, one of his concerts in Poland has already been cancelled, and in Germany Jewish and Christian organizations are demanding the same. Time to talk to the 79-year-old musician: What does he mean by all this? Is he simply misunderstood – should his concerts be cancelled? Is it justifiable to exclude him from the conversation? Or does society have a problem banning dissenters like Waters from the conversation?
The musician receives his visitors in his residence in southern England, friendly, open, unpretentious, but determined – that’s how he will remain throughout the conversation. First, however, he wants to demonstrate something special: In the studio of his house, he plays three tracks from a brand new re-recording of “The Dark Side of the Moon”, which celebrates its 50th birthday in March. “The new concept is meant to reflect on the meaning of the work, to bring out the heart and soul of the album,” he says, “musically and spiritually. I’m the only one singing my songs on these new recordings, and there are no rock and roll guitar solos.”
The spoken words, superimposed on instrumental pieces like “On The Run” or “The Great Gig in the Sky” and over “Speak To Me”, “Brain Damage” “Any Colour You Like and Money” are meant to clarify his “mantra”, the message he considers central to all his work: “It’s about the voice of reason. And it says: what is important is not the power of our kings and leaders or their so-called connection with God. What is really important is the connection between us as human beings, the whole human community. We, human beings, are scattered all over the globe – but we are all related because we all come from Africa. We are all brothers and sisters, or at the very least distant cousins, but the way we treat each other is destroying our home, planet earth – faster than we can imagine.” For instance, right now, suddenly here we are in 2023 involved in a year old proxy war with Russia in Ukraine. Why? Ok, a bit of history, in 2004 Russian President Vladimir Putin extended his hand to the West in an attempt to build an architecture of peace in Europe. It’s all there in the record. He explained that western plans to invite the post Maidan coup Ukraine into NATO posed a completely unacceptable existential threat to The Russian Federation and would cross a final red line that could end in war, so could we all get round the table and negotiate a peaceful future. His advances were brushed off by the US and its NATO allies. From then on he consistently maintained his position and NATO consistently maintained theirs: “F… you”. And here we are.
Mr Waters, you speak of the voice of reason, of the deep connection of all people. But when it comes to the war in Ukraine, you talk a lot about the mistakes of the US and the West, not about Russia’s war and the Russian aggression. Why don’t you protest against the acts committed by Russia? I know that you supported Pussy Riot and other human rights organizations in Russia. Why don’t you attack Putin?
First of all, if you read my letter to Putin and my writings around the start of the war in February….
…you called him a “gangster”…
…exactly, I did. But I may have changed my mind a little bit in the last year. There is a podcast from Cyprus called “The Duran”. The hosts speak Russian and can read Putin’s speeches in the original. Their comments on it make sense to me. The most important reason for supplying arms to Ukraine is surely profit for the arms industry. And I wonder: is Putin a bigger gangster than Joe Biden and all those in charge of American politics since World War II? I am not so sure. Putin didn’t invade Vietnam or Iraq? Did he?
The most important reason for arms deliveries is the following: It is to support Ukraine, to win the war and to stop Russia’s aggression. You seem to see it differently.
Yes. Maybe I shouldn’t be, but I am now more open to listen what Putin actually says. According to independent voices I listen to he governs carefully, making decisions on the grounds of a consensus in the Russian Federation government. There are also critical intellectuals in Russia, who have been arguing against American imperialism since the 1950s. And a central phrase has always been: Ukraine is a red line. It must remain a neutral buffer state. If it doesn’t remain so, we don’t know where it will lead. We still don’t know, but it could end in a Third World War.
In February last year, it was Putin who decided to attack.
He launched what he still calls a “special military operation”. He launched it on the basis of reasons that if I have understood them well are: 1. We want to stop the potential genocide of the Russian-speaking population of the Donbas. 2. We want to fight Nazism in Ukraine. There is a teenage Ukrainian girl, Alina, with whom I exchanged long letters: “I hear you. I understand your pain.” She answered me, thanked me, but stressed, I‘m sure you’re wrong about one thing though, “I am 200% certain there are no Nazis in Ukraine.” I replied again, “I’m sorry Alina, but you are wrong about that. How can you live in Ukraine and not know?”
There is no evidence that there has been genocide in Ukraine. At the same time, Putin has repeatedly emphasised that he wants to bring Ukraine back into his empire. Putin told former German Chancellor Angela Merkel that the saddest day in his life was in 1989, when the Soviet Union collapsed.
Isn’t the word origin of “Ukraine” the Russian word for “Borderland”? It was part of Russia and the Soviet Union for a long time. It’s a difficult history. During the Second World War, I believe there was a large part of the population of western Ukraine that decided to collaborate with the Nazis. They killed Jews, Roma, communists, and anyone else the Third Reich wanted dead. To this day there is the conflict between Western Ukraine (With or without Nazis Alina) and Eastern The Donbas) and Southern (Crimea) Ukraine and there are many Russian speaking Ukrainians because it was part of Russia for hundreds of years. How can you solve such a problem? It can’t be done by either the Kiev government or the Russians winning. Putin has always stressed that he has no interest in taking over western Ukraine – or invading Poland or any other country across the border. What he is saying is: he wants to protect the Russian-speaking populations in those parts of Ukraine where the Russian speaking populations feel under threat from the far right influenced post Maidan Coup Governments in Kiev. A coup that is widely accepted as having been orchestrated by the US.
We have spoken to many Ukrainians who can prove otherwise. The US may have helped support the 2014 protests. But overall, reputable sources and eyewitness accounts suggest that the protests arose from within – through the will of the Ukrainian people.
I wonder which Ukrainians you have spoken to? I can imagine that some claim that. On the other side of the coin a huge majority of Ukrainians in the Crimea and the Donbass have voted in referenda to rejoin The Russian Federation.
In February, you were surprised that Putin attacked Ukraine. How can you be so sure that he will not go further? Your trust in Russia does not seem to have been shattered, despite the bloody Russian war of aggression.
How can I be sure that the US will not risk starting a nuclear war with China? They are already provoking The Chinese by interfering in Taiwan. They would love to destroy Russia first. Anyone with an IQ above room temperature understands that, when they read the news, and the Americans admit it.
You irritate a lot of people because it always sounds like you are defending Putin.
Compared to Biden, I am. The US/NATO provocations before February 2022 were extreme and very damaging to the interests of all the ordinary people of Europe.
You would not boycott Russia?
I think it is counterproductive. You live in Europe: How much does the US charge for gas deliveries? Five times as much as its own citizens pay. In England, people are now saying “eat or heat” – because the poorer sections of the population can hardly afford to heat their homes. Western governments should realize that we are all brothers and sisters. In the Second World War they saw what happens when they try to wage war against Russia. They will unite and fight to the last ruble and the last square meter of ground to defend their motherland. Just like anyone would. I think if the US can convince its own citizens and you and many other people, that Russia is the real enemy, and that Putin is the new Hitler they will have an easier time stealing from the poor to give to the rich and also starting and promoting more wars, like this proxy war in Ukraine. Maybe that seems like an extreme political stance to you, but maybe the history I read and the news I garner is just different from you. You can’t believe everything you see on TV or read in the papers. All I am trying to achieve with my new recordings, my statements and performances is that our brothers and sisters in power stop the war – and that people understand that our brothers and sisters in Russia do not live under a repressive dictatorship, any more than you do in Germany or I do in the US. I mean would we choose to continue to slaughter young Ukrainians and Russians if we had the power to stop it?
We can do this interview, in Russia this would not be so easy… But back to Ukraine: What would be your political counter-proposal for a meaningful Ukraine policy of the West?
We need to get all our leaders around the table and force them to say: “No more war!”. That would be the point where dialogue can start.
Could you imagine living in Russia?
Yes, of course, why not? It would be the same as with my neighbours here in the south of England. We could go to the pub and talk openly – as long as they don’t go to war and kill Americans or Ukrainians. All right? As long as we can trade with each other, sell each other gas, make sure we’re warm in the winter, we’re fine. Russians are no different from you and me: there are good people and there are idiots – like everywhere else.
Then why don’t you play shows in Russia?
Not for ideological reasons. It is simply not possible at the moment. I’m not boycotting Russia, that would be ridiculous. I play 38 shows in the USA. If I were to boycott any country for political reasons, it would be the US. They are the main aggressor.
If one looks at the conflict neutrally, one can see Putin as the aggressor. Do you think we are all brainwashed?
Yes, I do indeed, definitely. Brainwashed, you said it.
Because we consume western media?
Exactly. What everyone in the West is being told is the “unprovoked invasion” narrative. Huh? Anyone with half a brain can see that the conflict in Ukraine was provoked beyond all measure. It is probably the most provoked invasion ever.
When concerts in Poland were cancelled because of your statements on the war in Ukraine, did you just feel misunderstood?
Yes. This is a big step backwards. It is an expression of Russophobia. People in Poland are obviously just as susceptible to Western propaganda. I would want to say to them: You are brothers and sisters, get your leaders to stop the war so that we can stop for a moment and think: “What is this war about?”. It is about making the rich in the Western countries even richer and the poor everywhere even poorer. The opposite of Robin Hood. Jeff Bezos has a fortune of around 200 billion dollars, while thousands of people in Washington D.C. alone live in cardboard boxes on the street.
Ukrainians are standing up to defend their country. Most people in Germany see it that way, which is why your statements cause consternation, even anger. Your perspectives on Israel meet with similar criticism here. That is also why there is now a discussion about whether your concerts in Germany should be cancelled. How do you react to that?
Oh, you know, it’s Israeli Lobby activists like Malca Goldstein-Wolf who demand that. That’s idiotic. They already tried to cancel my concert in Cologne in 2017 and even got the local radio stations to join in.
Isn’t it a bit easy to label these people as idiots?
Of course, they are not all idiots. But they probably read the Bible and probably believe that anyone who speaks out against Israeli fascism in the Holy Land is an anti-Semite. That’s really not a smart position to take, because to do so you have to deny that people lived in Palestine before the Israelis settled there. You have to follow the legend that says, “A land without a people for a people without a land.” What nonsense. The history here is quite clear. To this day, the indigenous, Jewish population is a minority. The Jewish Israelis all immigrated from Eastern Europe or the United States.
You once compared the state of Israel to Nazi Germany. Do you still stand by this comparison?
Yes, of course. The Israelis are committing genocide. Just like Great Britain did during our colonial period, by the way. The British committed genocide against the indigenous people of North America, for example. So did the Dutch, the Spanish, the Portuguese even the Germans in their colonies. All were part of the injustice of the colonial era. And we, the British also murdered and pillaged in India, Southeast Asia, China…. We believed ourselves to be inherently superior to the indigenous people, just as the Israelis do in Palestine. Well, we weren’t and neither are the Israeli Jews.
As an English man, you have a very different perspective on the history of the State of Israel than we Germans do. In Germany, criticism of Israel is handled with caution for good reasons; Germany has a historical debt that the country must live up to.
I understand that very well and I have been trying to deal with it for 20 years. But for me, your debt, as you put it, your national sense of guilt for what the Nazis did between 1933 and 1945, shouldn’t require your whole society to walk around with blinkers on about Israel. Would it not be better if it rather spurred you to throw away all the blinkers and support equal human rights for all your brothers and sisters all over the world irrespective of ethnicity religion or nationality?
Are you questioning Israel’s right to exist?
In my opinion, Israel has a right to exist as long as it is a true democracy, as long as no group, religious or ethnic, enjoys more human rights than any other. But unfortunately that is exactly what is happening in Israel and Palestine. The government says that only Jewish people should enjoy certain rights. So it can’t be described as democratic. They are very open about it, it’s enshrined in Israeli law. There are now many people in Germany, and of course many Jewish people in Israel, who are open to a different narrative about Israel. Twenty years ago, we could not have had a conversation about the State of Israel in which the terms genocide and apartheid were mentioned. Now I would say you can’t have that conversation without using those terms, because they accurately describe the reality in the occupied territory. I see that more and more clearly since I’ve been part of the BDS movement (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel, ed.).
Do you think they would agree with you here in England?
I can’t say for sure because I’ve hardly lived here for the last 20 years. I would have to go down to the pub and talk to people. But I suspect more and more would agree with me every day. I have many Jewish friends – by the way – who whole heartedly agree with me, which is one reason why it’s so crazy to try to discredit me as a Jew-hater. I have one close friend in New York, who happens to be Jewish, who said to me the other day, “A few years ago, I thought you were crazy, I thought you had completely lost it. Now I see you were right in your position on the policies of the state of Israel – and we, the Jewish community in the US, were wrong.” My friend in NY was clearly distressed making this remark, he is a good man.
BDS positions are sanctioned by the German Bundestag. A success of the BDS movement could ultimately mean an end to the state of Israel. Do you see it differently?
Yes, Israel could change its laws. They could say: We have changed our mind, people are allowed to have rights even if they are not Jewish. That would be it, then we wouldn’t need BDS any more.
Have you lost friends because you are active for BDS?
It’s interesting that you ask that. I don’t know exactly, but I very much doubt it. A friendship is a powerful thing. I would say I’ve had about ten real friends in my life. I couldn’t lose a friend because of my political views, because friends love each other – and friendship begets talk, and talk begets understanding. If a friend were to say, “Roger, I saw you flew an inflatable pig with a Star of David on it during your Wall concerts!”, I explain to them the context and that there was nothing anti-Semitic either intended or expressed.
What is the context then?
That was during the song “Goodbye Blue Sky” in “The Wall” show. And to explain the context, you see B-52 bombers, on a circular screen behind the band, but they don’t drop bombs, they drop symbols: Dollar signs, Crucifixes, Hammer and Sickles, Star and Crescents, the McDonalds sign – and Star of Davids. This is theatrical satire, an expression of my belief that unleashing these ideologies, or products onto the people on the ground, is an act of aggression, the opposite of humane, the opposite of creating love and peace among us brothers and sisters. I’m saying in the wrong hands all the ideologies these symbols represent can be evil.
What is your ideology? Are you an anarchist – against any kind of power that people exercise over each other?
I call myself a humanist, a citizen of the world. And my loyalty and respect belong to all people, regardless of their origin, nationality or religion.
Would you still perform in Israel today if they let you?
No, of course not. That would be crossing the picket line. I have for years written letters to colleagues in the music industry to try to convince them not to perform in Israel. Sometimes they disagree, they say, “But this is a way to make peace, we should go there and try to convince them to make peace” Well we are all entitled to our opinion, but in 2005 the whole of Palestinian Civil Society asked me to observe a cultural boycott, and who am I to tell a whole society living under a brutal occupation that I know better than they.
It is very provocative to say that you would play in Moscow but not in Israel.
Interesting that you say that given that Moscow does not run an apartheid state based on the genocide of the indigenous inhabitants.
In Russia, ethnic minorities are heavily discriminated against. Among other things, more ethnic non-Russians are sent to war than ethnic Russians.
You seem to be asking me to see Russia from the current Russo phobic perspective. I choose to see it differently, though as I have said I don’t speak Russian or live in Russia so I’m on foreign ground.
How do you like the fact that Pink Floyd have recorded a new piece for the first time in 30 years – with the Ukrainian musician Andrij Chlywnjuk?
I have seen the video and I am not surprised, but I find it really, really sad. It’s so alien to me, this action is so lacking in humanity. It encourages the continuation of the war. Pink Floyd is a name I used to be associated with. That was a huge time in my life, a very big deal. To associate that name now with something like this… proxy war makes me sad. I mean, they haven’t made the point of demanding, “Stop the war, stop the slaughter, bring our leaders together to talk!” It’s just this content-less waving of the blue and yellow flag. I wrote in one of my letters to the Ukrainian teenager Alina: I will not raise a flag in this conflict, not a Ukrainian flag, not a Russian flag, not a US flag.
After the fall of the Wall, you performed “The Wall” in reunified Berlin, certainly with optimistic expectations for the future. Did you think you could also contribute to this future with your own art, make a difference?
Of course, I believe that to this day. If you have political principles and are an artist, then the two areas are inextricably intertwined. That’s one reason why I left Pink Floyd, by the way: I had those principles, the others either did not or had different ones.
Do you now see yourself as equal parts musician and political activist?
Yes, sometimes I lean towards one, sometimes the other.
Will your current tour really be your last tour?
(Chuckles) I have no idea. The tour is subtitled “The First Farewell Tour” and that’s an obvious joke because old rock stars routinely use Farewell Tour as a selling tool. Then they sometimes retire and sometimes go on another Final Farewell Tour, it’s all good.
You want to keep sending something out to the world, make a difference?
I love good music, I love good literature – especially English and Russian, also German. That’s why I like the idea of people noticing and understanding what I do.
Then why don’t you hold back with political statements?
Because I am who I am. If I wasn’t this person who has strong political convictions, I wouldn’t have written “The Dark Side of the Moon”, “The Wall”, “Wish You Were Here”, “Amused to Death” and all the other stuff.
Thank you very much for the interview.
***
This is what Dave Gilmour, speaking through his wife (!), had to say:
Needless to say, I now see Gilmour as a (very talented) sad piece of shit. Andrei
Comment by Andrei: Russia invited Roger Waters to speak at the UNSC even though the Russians perfectly knew and understood that Roger Waters does not share the same view of this war than Russia does. That is true pluralism and not its pathetic and ugly substitute we see in the “free and democratic media” which immediately branded Waters as an “Putin agent” and, of course, an “anti-Semite”. Let me repeat, it is Russia which gave a voice to the billions of people Roger Waters speaks about and speaks for. Not the “free and democratic West”. I am very proud of Russia today 🙂
Moscow has requested that Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters be allowed to speak at the next UNSC meeting on Ukraine
British rock icon Roger Waters has officially been asked by Russia to participate in the upcoming United Nations Security Council meeting, set to be held on Wednesday, to discuss peace prospects and weapons deliveries to Ukraine.
The invitation was announced by Russia’s First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyansky on Tuesday. He wrote on his Telegram channel that Russia had officially requested that the UN allow the Pink Floyd co-founder and peace activist to be featured as a speaker.
Waters has been an outspoken critic of the ongoing military conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which he has called an “unnecessary war,” and has repeatedly called for efforts to find a peaceful resolution to the issue. He has also condemned the West’s continued military support to Kiev, accusing the US and its allies of “war profiteering” and intentionally provoking and prolonging hostilities in the region.
He has also stated on several occasions that he holds Washington responsible for sparking the Ukraine crisis and allowing the conflict between Moscow and Kiev because it benefits American interests and is “really good for business.”
The musician’s repeated calls for peace between Moscow and Kiev and criticism of Western military meddling have seen him branded as a Russia apologist and propagator of “Kremlin talking points.” His opinions have led to his concerts being banned in Poland and he has even landed in the notorious ‘Mirotvorets’ database – often dubbed Kiev’s “kill list” – after several individuals, including journalists and politicians, were assassinated after appearing on the website.
In September, Waters wrote an open letter personally addressed to Russian President Vladimir Putin, calling for diplomatic talks to end the conflict. He also wrote to Vladimir Zelensky’s wife Elena, asking her to help him “to persuade our leaders to stop the slaughter.”
did they expect us to treat them with any respect? they can polish their medals and sharpen their smiles, and amuse themselves playing games for a while boom boom, bang bang, lie down you’re dead Roger Waters
By now most of you must have heard about the “mysterious” missile strike which hit Poland. If you missed it, here are some articles which show how this non-event was developed by the media:
It is actually quite interesting to see how this story “developed”. First it was presented as a Russian attack. Of course. What else could it be?
Then it became pretty obvious that the missile was a Ukrainian S-300 air defense missile. Now I should tell you that the Ukronazis have accused Russia of using old S-300 against ground targets. However, there are no Russian S-300 within range of the location in Poland where the missile landed, only Ukrainian ones. And, as Gonzalo Lira pointed out, a Polish farmer really did a great thing when he photographed the debris of the missile. I would note that Lira is wrong when he things that a Russian missile could only come from the East. Russian standoff weapons use satellite, inertial and terrain following guidance to follow a carefully prepared track to bypass air defenses and they very much can fly around a target before hitting it from “behind”.
Very predictably, the usual gang of nutcases demanded a UNSC meeting and a NATO meeting. The Ukies were especially vociferous, and it is pretty obvious why: Ukronazi S-300 have been hitting buildings for quite a while now, and each of these explosions was, of course, blamed on Russia (or even personally on Putin). There are videos on Telegram of Ukrainian air defense missiles taking off, making a large curve and either exploding in mid-air or, worse, hitting the ground. The exact same thing happened during the Gulf War when US Patriots failed to intercept Iraqi SCUDs and actually killed people on the ground. Kiev’s attempts to conceal the real origin of this missile by loud hysterics about “Russian aggression” did not work out too well this time.
Initially, it appears that some Polish politicians wanted to immediately use this incident to create even more tensions, but the rather tepid reaction of the US sent them a clear message: the US is not interested in participating in what would be a truly ridiculous (and potentially very dangerous) PSYOP or false flag.
The Poles got the message and soon they also agreed that the missile was Ukrainian.
The only “consolation prize” the Poles and Ukies got was a flaccid US statement to the effect that Russia was “ultimately responsible”, which is about as meaningful and interesting as a wet firecracker.
Still, the Hyena of Europe is trying hard to show is prowess by fighting “little wars” since their US masters do not allow them (yet!) to trigger the big war that this hyena desperately needs to, yet again, bite off some land from the defeated Ukraine (just as it did during the partition of Chzekoslovakia with Hitler’s help in 1938).
Yet another confirmation that Nazi Ukrainians, the Latin Poles and Zionist Israelis have the same “enemies” in spite of their, comparatively minor, differences in ideology.
To be fair, the UK, Canada, Banderastan or any of the three Baltic statelets are no less hyenas than Poland – they too only show courage when protected by the US overlords.
So yes, this time around, the Ukronazis and the Poles could not use an indisputably Ukrainian missile to try to strong arm NATO into attacking Russia. But what will happen the next time if not photos are available (the Ukronazis have already banned the making of photos or videos from any location hit by any missile!)?
So where is this all heading?
Simple: first, the Poles hate the Ukrainians just as much as they hate Russians. The Ukrainians, by the way, hate the Poles no less than they hate Russians (and Jews). The only difference is that the Polish anti-Ukrainian hate is laced with contempt whereas their anti-Russian hate is laced with fear. Add to this picture the Brits with their own imperial phantom pains and sense of racial superiority over the “continental” Europeans (“fog over the channel, Europe isolated“) and you quickly see that there is plenty of hate going around amongst these “allies”.
So what we are dealing with is an entire pack hate-filled of hyenas.
The Poles and the Ukies have one main thing in common – they want NATO to wage war on Russia: the Ukies want this to simply survive and the Poles to grab a piece of the Ukraine. Some political parties in Poland even want Ukrainian refugees to pledge their loyalty to Poland! Truth be told, the Ukronazis have passed laws which, in essence, allow Polish nationals to have the same right as Ukrainians.
Sure looks like the Poland at at least some part of Banderastan are being prepped for an eventual fusion into one entity. Boy, if that really happens EU will have a big and very ugly problem on its hands 🙂
And, of course, NATO leaders would love to defeat Russia in a major war, but they know that they simply don’t have the manpower to do so, hence the US “caution” and talks about “deconfliction”.
Some are contemplating some kind of “coalition of the willing” or an “alliance of democracies” but all these pretty sounding concepts provide neither manpower nor firepower. That approached failed miserably everywhere it was tried, and it will fail again.
Attacking Russia when Russia is weak, or already under attack from other enemies, in a time-honored Polish tradition and their national hero is a psychopathic leader who seriously wanted Poland to become a European superpower by seizing all the land between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea. God knows they tried enough times to know that this simply won’t happen, so the next best thing for the Poles is to grab as much of the Ukraine as possible.
The other “sophisticated” strategy of the Poles is to be the most abjectly subservient poodle in the “Anglo Eurokennel” with the hope that what Rumsfeld’s “new Europe” (aka Poland) would replace the “old Europe” (aka Germany and France). Remember how they wanted a “Fort Trump”? There were even willing to pay (mostly with EU subsidies) for the “honor” to house US forces!
That is how Poles want to become an “EU superpower”. No kidding!
The same goes for the Brits whose centuries old foreign policy can be summed up in once sentence “set fire to Europe by triggering wars and revolutions”.
Unsurprisingly, the Brits and the Poles are currently having something of a love fest (in spite of the British sense of superiority over this wannabe European superpower).
Their biggest problem is that neither country has nukes and they both need Uncle Shmuel’s go ahead not only to use nukes, but even to organize a (comparatively) minor incident or false flag. And while the Poles have been (and still are) arming themselves like crazy, the British military is mostly a joke. And there is simply no way the Poles would muster the (admittedly suicidal) courage to attack Russian forces by themselves. The three Baltic statelets would gladly contribute to such a noble cause, but their military capabilities are really puny and their geography a death sentence should they attack Russia.
That is not to say that there are no Poles fighting in the Ukraine. There are at least several thousands Poles currently fighting in the Ukraine but, just as the rest of the NATO personnel, they are officially either “volunteers” or “advisors” or “aide providers”. By the way, the “old Europeans” are also well represented in the Ukraine with French, Spanish and Italian units also present.
But these numbers are nowhere near the kind of numbers needed to take on the Russian military directly.
Be as it may, the truly insane policies and attitudes of both the Poles and the Ukrainians are slowly bringing about the realization of the fact that the expansion of the EU to the East was a huge and fatal mistake. Not only are countries like Hungary and Poland not willing to obey every commands of the Eurobureaucrats, the infinite arrogance of the Ukrainians who are constantly demanding, not asking, that NATO and the EU support them no matter what are now resulting in to something of a backlash (still very demure, most EU politicians are still unable to openly defy the US). As the western economies further sink into an economy abyss, the arrogance and sense of entitlement of both the Poles and the Ukrainians will trigger more and more pushback.
Sooner or later, the rest of the EU will get fed up with these crazies.
Even some US politicians, including liberals and conservatives, are objecting to the total US support for regime in Kiev.
Will those voices ever add up for a return to sanity? I honestly don’t know.
The future of the European continent will be largely determined by the ability of the, shall we say, “sane EU countries” to rein in and contain the hardcore crazies of the 3B+PU+UK gang. Right now, the 3B+PU+UK have the total support of the USA, which is extremely dangerous as it encourages them to further engage in truly dangerous and even reckless actions. The US Neocons are at least as hate-filled towards Russia as the 3B+PU+UK gang, so we can only pray and hope that there are enough sane minds in the Pentagon and elsewhere to urge caution (which is what, apparently, happened in the case of the “mysterious” missile attack on the Polish tractor).
The bottom line is this: unless the adults in the room can keep the various “EU hyenas” on a short leash, sooner or later one of these hyenas will trigger a potentially cataclysmic chain of events. Keep in mind that the folks who put the Nazis in power in Kiev are the same ones who federated the Takfiris in what became known as al-Qaeda (thank you Zbig!). That was over 40 years ago, and the world is still paying a huge price in innocent blood for this “brilliant” CIA plan…
Right now, I don’t see any “adults in the room”, but maybe that will change over the course of this winter?
We shall soon find out.
Before I sign off, I want to leave you with three interesting items:
Third, I leave you with a very interesting interview of Col (Ret) Douglas MacGregor, a superb US military analyst and a man who has been saying the truth about the war in the Ukraine for a long time now.
I can just hope and pray that folks in the Pentagon and the letter soup listen to what MacGregor has to say!
Six years in the making, Is that So? is one of John McLaughlin’s deepest and most profound musical collaborations with prolific Indian composer and vocalist Shankar Mahadevan. Joining the duo is their life-long friend and musical brother Ustad Zakir Hussain on the tabla, who has been collaborating with John since they founded Shakti in the early ’70s, acknowledged by most to be the first groundbreaking crossover East-West musical group. ‘The idea for this album appeared in my mind early 2013. Shankar and I had been touring with Shakti and I was constantly inspired by his superb voice and gigantic talent. Even though I had studied the theory and practice of Indian music for years, I remain a ‘Western’ musician and one aspect of Western music is the magic of harmony’, says John. ‘From the outset in the early 1970’s, I constantly researched the possibilities of integrating harmony into the traditions of North and South India while at the same time keeping as close as possible to the melodic rules of the Raga system. However, the idea I mention above, was to abandon the rules of the Raga system completely and apply my own western harmonic liberty to the amazing voice of Shankar Mahadevan. ‘Before concerts, John and I used to dabble with free improvisations using Indian scales (Ragas) and different harmonies backing them’, says Shankar Mahadevan. ‘The whole texture, color, feeling and the canvas of the music excited us as harmonic content does not exist in Indian classical music. In the beginning it was just a fun experiment, but it soon became larger than life and we knew we had to record it. When Zakir Hussain, the great tabla Maestro himself agreed to play in the improvisational sections we knew this would take our recording to a new level. We could not have asked for more. Is that So? is a a new concept in the meeting of musicians, singers, percussionists and the musical cultures of the East and West and takes us into unexplored musical horizons.
Next,
Pat Metheny and Charlie Haden interpret “Cinema Paradiso”
Giorgos Dalaras and Al Di Meola interpret “Hasta Siempre Comandante”
Finally,
Shadia Mansour interprets Assalamu Alaikum
Translated Lyrics:
Assalamu Alaikum (Peace Be Upon You) Peace be upon you Peace be upon you I present you with greetings From me to you Peace be upon you Peace be upon you I present you with greetings From me to you Hear me Bring the boys and the girls Let them smell the mountain air for free We don’t want anyone to end up with nothing Oh no Raise your glasses Everyone is Hamas [i.e. resisting the Israeli military occupation of Palestine] Raise your voices, let’s break the glass Break the glass I want everyone From all the countries Muslims and Christians No difference Between me and you Where are you? Raise your hands Where are you? Leee leee leee [sound made traditionally in Arabic weddings or other joyous occasions] Where are you Spread this word from me Peace be upon you Help me This is the Andalous [Islamic Spain] dance The Palestinian Dabke [line dance performed at weddings & other joyous occasions] Increase the Lebanese 100 out of 100 It’s educational And appropriate Global And cultural Real National Arabic-national Truly Arabic Anything western Eastern Peace be upon you Peace be upon you I present you with greetings From me to you Peace be upon you Peace be upon you I present you with greetings From me to you
Pink Floyd rock legend Roger Waters has reaffirmed his commitment to perform in Germany next year as part of his This Is Not a Drill world tour in spite of vicious smears against him from German politicians and media outlets accusing him of antisemitism.
On Friday, Waters wrote on Facebook to his fans saying The Mayor of Munich, some members of the Green and SDP political parties and others “have been slandering me, accusing me of being an anti-semite and also a Putin apologist. I am neither of those things. Never have been and never will be.”
Waters, known for his outspoken commitment to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and as a proud supporter of rights for Palestinians, has been attacked by German officials attempting to have his upcoming shows canceled.
According to Berliner Zeitung, Samuel Salzborn, the anti-Semitism commissioner of the Social Democratic Party, called for the cancellation of his upcoming concert in Berlin in May 2023.
The German official recently described the musician as “one of the loudest voices in the music business, spreading anti-Israel anti-Semitism,” in the German newspaper B.Z, according to Tagesspiegel.
Salzborn has been criticized himself for his “deep intolerance against Palestinians” by Palestinian journalist Ali Abunimah in the Electronic Intifada, following a Tweet he made in October 2019 (now deleted) which said:
“When you’re sitting in the train and the people next to you start talking about ‘Palestine’ without any apparent reason, it means it is time to either get off the train, put on your headphones, or scream at them”.
Abunimah said the tweet appears to be “a pure expression of his disgust even at the thought of Palestine or Palestinians existing.”
An article published last week in Jüdische Allgemeine smears Waters even more viciously, the article titled “Jew hatred on tour” says the Bavarian anti-Semitism commissioner Ludwig Spaenle recently called on the city of Munich to cancel the contract for the planned concert in the Olympiahalle if Waters did not distance himself from the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement.
BDS is a Palestinian-led movement encouraging non-violent pressure on Israel until it complies with international law.
In the same article, Sigmount Königsberg, the anti-Semitism commissioner for Berlin’s Jewish community is quoted as saying Waters is “an anti-Semite, a hate preacher with music that demonizes Israel.”
Likewise, Uwe Becker, Spaenle’s Hessian counterpart says Waters is, “a bad example of aggressive, Israel-related anti-Semitism” and that he is not welcome in the state.
Dear German fans, I’ve heard there is a rumor going round that I may not be coming to Germany on my European tour, because of opposition from the Israeli Lobby. RUBBISH! I WOULDN'T MISS MY GIGS IN GERMANY FOR ANYTHING!
Waters is not unique in having weaponized allegations of antisemitism wielded against him in Germany. The Euromed Human Rights Monitor recently expressed concern over the “anti-Arab purge in German media.”
Waters has become an outspoken critic of Israel’s apartheid and oppression of the Palestinian people since he first visited the West Bank in 2006 and was approached by the BDS movement to support the campaign.
Speaking on Joe Rogan’s Experience last month, considered the world’s most popular podcast, Waters exposed Israel’s ongoing apartheid against the Palestinians saying, “now it is very difficult for anyone to have a conversation about Israel and Palestine without using the word apartheid because it is in the lexicon, and the problem is far more in the light.”
This year Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch published reports asserting Israel is committing the crime of apartheid.
So far Waters’ tour has also illuminated Israel’s ongoing injustices against Palestinians, including the attacks made against Palestinian journalists. During his recent US shows, images of Israel’s apartheid wall were displayed as well as the name of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh who was shot dead by Israeli forces this year.
And it is not just adoring fans who listen to Waters’ informed perspective on Palestine, in 2012 he gave an extended address at the United Nations as part of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine and has written many letters encouraging fellow musicians not to perform in Israel.
Last year, distinguished Palestinian historian, Professor Rashid Khalidi (Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University) suggested that young Palestinians should, “stop listening to old people for advice” on their activism at an event held by Palestine Dee Dive, before quickly correcting himself saying, “actually there is one older person you should still listen to, of course, his name is Roger Waters.”
Waters rounded off his to address fans in Germany on Facebook, saying:
“Your Ruling Class and your media want to ban me from bringing my message of love and peace and revolution to enrich your lives. WELL I’M COMING, and together we will raise the roof on this charade”.
Roger Waters’ concert tour titled, “This is Not a Drill,” is a display of both fantastic music and enormous courage, generosity and urgency. He delivers a message that is clear and unapologetic. It calls for justice for Palestine, justice for all oppressed people, it is an anti-war, anti-gun, anti-nukes, pro-environment, pro human rights message. But above all, through his music, he delivers a message to young people that we must all speak up and raise our voices without fear.
Waters’ message is an answer to all those who tell young people that they must be silent; that speaking for justice, particularly regarding Palestine, may obstruct their careers or ruin their lives. And here, this larger than life mega-star, the beating heart of the legendary Pink Floyd, is saying it like it is and doing it in front of tens of thousands of people. This concert is a combination of genius, generosity and courage.
GENEROSITY
At one point, Waters talks about sitting around the bar. We are all invited to huddle together (all twenty thousand people in the arena) around the bar, where there is a piano, a few bottles of booze, and an atmosphere of closeness. This is an idea that Roger Waters talks about, “where everyone feels safe to express their thoughts, agree or disagree and still be welcome to stay.” He sits behind the piano surrounded by the band and he speaks to us, all of us who are there.
He creates the sense of intimacy successfully by speaking plainly into the microphone, unedited and unrehearsed and straight from the heart. About respecting one another, about caring for all people, about fearing for our future not as Americans, Britons or Africans, but as people who inhabit the Earth and have no other home to go to.
His political message is in sync with this human appeal, this invitation to gather around the piano. Banning guns that benefit only the greedy, dismantling walls that surround us and keep us apart, and standing for the rights of the oppressed. His message underlines the generosity of the mega rock star who, unlike so many others, cares.
SAY THEIR NAMES
Roger Waters is not like so many of the other still-performing mega-stars of his generation. While they –Elton John, Billy Joel, Paul McCartney etc. – are all talented, their concerts are largely a regurgitation of their old stuff. Not so with Waters. While he certainly plays some of the great old classics, it is revived and rejuvenated and filled with contemporary relevant political and social messaging.
The names of Shireen Abu-Akleh, George Floyd, Mahsa Amini, Rachel Corrie, and many other names of innocents murdered by oppressors who were armed and felt they had a right to kill are displayed on the massive screen during the concert. Roger Waters will not let the world forget these names and when he has the opportunity, in front of tens of thousands of fans, he says their names.
In a terribly reactionary, almost embarrassing, (to the magazine, not to Roger Waters) piece in Rolling Stone magazine, Waters is made to seem like some radical fool for stating the political beliefs that he holds so dear. In another interview with CNN’s Michael Smerconish, he is asked about a message that is displayed on the giant screen right before the show. The message is, “If you’re one of those, ‘I love Pink Floyd but I can’t stand Roger’s politics,’ people, you might do well to fuck off to the bar right now. Thank you and please enjoy the show.”
Smerconish says that he can buy into some of Waters’ messages and others he cannot, so should he fuck off or stay. “I’ve only got one message,” Waters replies, and I wrote it in 1970.” That message is, “two people passing each other in the street, by chance their passing glances meet, and I am you and what I see is me.” It was on the album Meddle from 1970. “I recognize your humanity,” Waters continues, “but I also recognize that of the Russians and the Chinese and Ukrainians and the Yemenis and the Palestinians.”
A STAR WITH A BACKBONE
Waters is a brilliant musician who uses his art, fame and his massive success to bring an important political and social message to the world. He has the means at his disposal, and rather than hide behind his fame, he is accessible and generous. Whereas we may never know what Elton John really believes politically, though his tears at receiving a medal from Joe Biden do not exactly show him to be particularly principled. The same goes for other superstars. But with Waters, who listed Biden as a war criminal among other U.S. presidents, one can only imagine what his response might be if invited to the White House.
Waters’ tour is nothing short of epic. He is not only a genius, but he pulls out all the stops, making his show absolutely breathtaking. However, it is not just the music, it is the combination of cutting edge music, lyrics, ideas, political awareness and a sense of social justice. It is also the ingenious ability to put it all together in a way that is moving and unforgettable. One cannot come out of this show and not be moved by the powerful message conveyed through imagery, words and music.
THE RIGHT ANSWER
In response to his courageous political message, there are people who would say that a guy like him can afford to do this because he is so successful and wealthy, so has nothing to lose. The truth, however, is the opposite. There is no such thing as a person who has nothing to lose. Making bold political statements is never easy, and particularly in the political environment that exists in America today, it is a huge risk. It is not that he has nothing to lose, and so he can do this. He has everything to lose and still he dares to put it all on the line, calls us to join him at the bar, huddle around his piano, talk, fight together and stand up for those who need support.
Art and politics do not always go hand in hand well, but it does not mean that they shouldn’t; indeed, it means that they should. Art and those who call themselves artists, particularly the great and the famous ones, those who have everything to lose, can learn from a giant like Roger Waters; learn how to stand up and speak up.
“Did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?” An Open letter to Mrs. Olena Zelenska from Roger Waters Sunday 4th September 2022
Dear Mrs. Zelenska,
My heart bleeds for you and all the Ukrainian and Russian families, devastated by the terrible war in Ukraine. I’m in Kansas City, USA. I have just read a piece on BBC.com apparently taken from an interview you have already recorded for a program called ‘Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg’ which is to be broadcast on the BBC today, September 4th. BBC.com quotes you as saying that “If support for Ukraine is strong, the crisis will be shorter.” Hmmm? I guess that might depend on what you mean by “support for Ukraine”? If by “support for Ukraine” you mean the West continuing to supply arms to the Kiev government’s armies, I fear you may be tragically mistaken. Throwing fuel, in the form of armaments, into a fire fight, has never worked to shorten a war in the past, and it won’t work now, particularly because, in this case, most of the fuel is (a) being thrown into the fire from Washington DC, which is at a relatively safe distance from the conflagration, and (b) because the ‘fuel throwers’ have already declared an interest in the war going on for as long as possible. I fear that we, and by we I mean people like you and me who actually want peace in Ukraine, who don’t want the outcome to be that you have to fight to the last Ukrainian life, and possibly even, if the worst comes to the worst, to the last human life. If we, instead, wish to achieve a different outcome we may have to seek a different route and that route may lie in your husband’s previously stated good intentions.
Yes, I mean the platform upon which he so laudably ran for the office of President of Ukraine, the platform upon which he won his historic landslide victory in the democratic election in 2019. He stood on the election platform of the following promises.
1. To end the civil war in the East and bring peace to the Donbas and partial autonomy to Donetsk and Luhansk. 2. And to ratify and implement the rest of the body of the Minsk 2 agreements.
One can only assume that your husband’s electoral policies didn’t sit well with certain political factions in Kiev and that those factions persuaded your husband to diametrically change course ignoring the peoples mandate. Sadly, your old man agreed to those totalitarian, anti-democratic dismissals of the will of the Ukrainian people, and the forces of extreme nationalism that had lurked, malevolent, in the shadows, have, since then, ruled the Ukraine. They have, also since then, crossed any number of red lines that had been set out quite clearly over a number of years by your neighbors the Russian Federation and in consequence they, the extreme nationalists, have set your country on the path to this disastrous war.
I won’t go on.
If I’m wrong, please help me to understand how?
If I’m not wrong, please help me in my honest endeavors to persuade our leaders to stop the slaughter, the slaughter which serves only the interests of the ruling classes and extreme nationalists both here in the West, and in your beautiful country, at the expense of the rest of us ordinary people both here in the West, and in the Ukraine, and in fact ordinary people everywhere all over the world.
Might it not be better to demand the implementation of your husband’s election promises and put an end to this deadly war?
Roger Waters paid tribute to Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh during a concert. (Photo: via WAFA)
The legendary star of Pink Floyd, Roger Waters, recently paid a tribute to slain Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh during a concert in New York.
The 78-year-old songwriter and composer displayed Abu Akleh’s name across the concert’s backdrop along with words saying that her crime was “being Palestinian” and that her punishment was “death”.
English musician @rogerwaters paid tribute to Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was murdered by an Israeli sniper while she was covering a military raid into Jenin, during his conecert in New York on Saturday night. pic.twitter.com/kfGuxxGom1
— Palestine and MENA Info Center (@PALMENA_IC) August 23, 2022
On May 11, while covering an Israeli army assault in the northern occupied West Bank refugee camp of Jenin, Abu Akleh, 51, was murdered by a bullet to the head fired by an Israeli sniper.
Last week, Palestinians around the world marked 100 days since Abu Akleh’s killing.
Waters has been vocally advocating for Palestinians and their rights and is known for his support for the BDS movement.
The FSB reported on the identification of the customers and perpetrators of the murder of Daria Dugina.
The murder was planned by the Ukrainian special services. The direct perpetrator of the murder was a citizen of Ukraine Natalia Vovk, born in 1979, who left Russia for Estonia on August 21. She arrived in Russia on July 23.
It is also reported that:
1. Vovk and her daughter Sofya Shaban rented an apartment in the house where Daria Dugina lived in Moscow. 2. A “Mini Cooper” was used to spy on Daria Dugina. The numbers were changed three times on it — the license plates of the DPR, Kazakhstan and Ukraine were used
As reported, Daria’s car was blown up using a remote detonation of an IED with a capacity of 400 grams of TNT.
The car was driven from the parking lot to the explosion site. The suspects’ phones have disappeared from the network.The investigation continues.
Documents and photos of the murderer of Daria Dugina – a “serviceman” of the terrorist organization “Azov Regiment” – Natalia Vovk (nee Shaban).
Roger Waters has been added to the infamous website “Mirotvorets” (peacemaker) which lists the so-called “enemies of the Ukraine” and publishes their personal information:
It is impossible for such a site to exist, and its owners are not responsible for their actions. Journalist Daria Dugina was killed in Russia on Saturday night. I would hardly have known who she was if my friends hadn’t told me that she and her father, Alexander Dugin, were included on the Mirotvorets website, and everyone knew their details. Of course, you don’t have to listen to me, because I’m a child. But for the third year I have been trying to reach out to all world leaders and organizations. All this time I hear jokes that it’s honorable and great to be in the database of this site. But yesterday there was another murder. It’s not for me to figure out who is to blame for this and how it happened. Now I’m just really sorry for Daria’s parents.
But I will say something else: even if we accept the version that the Mirotvorets is fighting the enemies of Ukraine in this way, the main thing remains – they can no longer control the use of information and guarantee that not only nationalists, but also murderers and other criminals will not use the data they post. Tomorrow, someone will not like Roger Waters or Hungarian President Orban, and criminals can fulfill their plans, in which the owners of the Mirotvorets are always happy to help them. I’ve always said that the Mirotvorets are scoundrels and scammers, but now they just kill people with their help. And if such famous people are killed without fear of punishment, then what about me, an ordinary child from Lugansk? About other children whose data is on the site?
You are allowed not to love Russia – this is a personal matter for everyone – but you can not break the laws. You can’t just sentence those you don’t like to death. The Mirotvorets website has not been responsible for what it puts out for a long time. No one knows who will be next. And it doesn’t matter who will kill – Ukrainian nationalists, ISIS or just crazy. I would really like everyone who is on the Mirotvorets to finally start talking and start doing something. It is impossible for such a site to exist, and its owners are not responsible for their actions.
Pink Floyd’s co-founder Roger Waters criticizes the United States over its role in the Ukraine war while underlining that Taiwan is part of China.
British singer-songwriter Roger Waters of Pink Floyd
China is not encircling Taiwan, for the latter is part of China, Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters told CNN during an interview on Monday, sparking controversy against the British artist.
In an interview with CNN‘s Michael Smerconish, Waters responded to comments from Smerconish that China was “encircling Taiwan”, saying: “They [the Chinese forces] are not encircling Taiwan! Taiwan is part of China.”
“And that’s been absolutely accepted by the whole international community since 1948, and if you don’t know that, you are not reading enough,” the singer added.
The comments led to a large-scale campaign of hate against the British artist.
China announced carrying out fresh military drills around Taiwan Monday, days after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island escalated tensions between the two powers.
Pelosi’s visit led China to announce ending cooperation with the United States on a number of issues such as climate change, anti-drug efforts, and military talks.
The US official’s visit to Taipei triggered a series of Chinese large-scale military drills east of the Taiwan Strait, as well as massive rows between Beijing and Washington.
“Try and figure out what the United States would do if the Chinese were putting nuclear-armed missiles into Mexico or Canada,” Waters stressed.
Waters responded to questions about his This Is Not a Drill live show, which sees an image of Joe Biden appear among pictures of “war criminals”.
He backed his position by underlining that this was because Biden was “fueling the fire in the Ukraine.”
US President Joe Biden among the “war criminals” in George Waters’ “This Is Not a Drill” live show
It is a “huge crime,” he said. “Why won’t the United States of America encourage [Volodymyr] Zelensky, or whatever his name is, the [Ukrainian] President, to negotiate, obviating the need for this horrific, horrendous war?”
He went on to say that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine was to do with the “action and reaction of NATO pushing right up to the Russian border.”
Waters brought up the ratification of the Minsk agreement, calling on Zelensky to explain why “when he stood on the platform of ratifying the Minsk agreements, which he did when he was elected by 73% of the Ukrainian population that was able to vote.”
“After that, somebody whispered in his ear, or he completely changed his mind about making peace in the Donbass and about solidifying the Minsk agreement and making peace with their Russian neighbors, and obviating the need for this horrific, horrendous war. You’re killing – we don’t know how many Ukrainians,” Waters underscored, holding Zelensky accountable for what has taken place in Ukraine.
I took CNN's edit of the Roger Waters interview and compared a particular section, where Roger spoke about Ukraine, to the uncut version that contained some important context about the Minsk agreements but was taken out by producers. pic.twitter.com/uOUqeN59nL
His position backs that of Moscow, who had been warning NATO and the European Union against pushing toward the Russian border, but its warnings fell on deaf ears and culminated in the Ukraine war.
This is the third of our Encores from the Us and Them tour. This is the first one with any overdubs, not an easy trick to pull off remotely, luckily the Band are all brilliant.
Vera.
The Vera in question is Vera Lynn. She was an English singer, songwriter, very popular during the Second World War. Her biggest hit was “We’ll meet again”. She was widely known as the “Forces’ Sweetheart”. Our Vera, who is very fondly remembered back in Blighty, died six weeks ago aged 103. So she had a bloody good innings, bless her.
Bring the boys back home.
My father never came home, but at least in 1944 he really was fighting to defend his home. Not like now. Now the boys fight and die in colonial wars so some rich asshole can get richer. If it were up to me I’d bring ’em all home tomorrow.
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 