Wall up against Waters’ stance on Israel

...Waters was the John Lennon of Pink Floyd; an aggressive, irascible hard-left political agitator who split the group up and now carries on like a pork chop fancying himself as some kind of modern-day rock revolutionary. But where Lennon believed in peace and love, Waters preaches bile and hatred.

Rowan Dean..
The Courier-Mail..
06 July '15..

I’VE decided to boycott Pink Floyd.

I will sanction The Dark Side of the Moon and divest myself of The Wall . It’s all part of my Boycott Divest and Sanction (BDS) Roger Waters campaign.

Which is heartbreaking, because I love Pink Floyd.

And I’ll really miss them.

But all my Floyd CDs have to go.

My campaign is in protest against the fact that Waters is chief spokesman of the hideously anti-Semitic Boycott Divest and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.

This is the same sinister campaign beloved of the Greens who make it their business to intimidate Jewish businesses (such as Max Brenner chocolate shops) and even a Jewish theatre, on the pretence of supporting the Palestinian “struggle”.

The same mob who savaged Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson for doing ads for SodaStream, an Israeli company which used to have a factory in the West Bank but was forced to close it, at the cost of thousands of Palestinian jobs.

Waters was the John Lennon of Pink Floyd; an aggressive, irascible hard-left political agitator who split the group up and now carries on like a pork chop fancying himself as some kind of modern-day rock revolutionary. But where Lennon believed in peace and love, Waters preaches bile and hatred.

All of it aimed at Israel.

Waters – who, let’s face it, has not written a decent tune in decades – has a newfound audience and newfound “relevance” thanks to his passionate support for BDS.

He bullies fellow artists to boycott performing in Israel, and rails against the “conspiracy” of Jews in Hollywood. Waters claims his concern is for the “Palestinian children”, yet I’ve yet to hear a peep out of him about those Palestinian (and other Arab) children being massacred by the truckload all around the Middle East and Africa by Islamists.

His only concern is when it happens to include his pet villains, the Israelis.

“No Jews – no news” is how Bassam Eid, the Palestinian founder of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group describes this hypocrisy.

Eid, who grew up in the Shuafat refugee camp in northeast Jerusalem, and has experienced the hardships of a Palestinian refugee, is scathing of the BDS activists who – like Waters – are only interested in the plight of his people when it affords them the opportunity to pour scorn on Israel (and Jews).

There is nothing wrong with passionate political protest against injustice and discrimination.

But BDS, which falsely portrays the Israel-Palestine conflict in the same moral vein as the struggle against apartheid, is a grotesque fraud.

Peace requires both sides, Israel and Palestine, to make huge compromises and efforts toward achieving peace with security.

BDS pretends to support Palestinian aspirations, but by closing down Israeli industries that have invested in Palestinian jobs, does incalculable harm to everyday Palestinian families and the economy – damaging hopes for a workable, lasting peace.

By deliberately boycotting Israeli businesses in the West Bank, supporters of BDS are destroying the lives of the Palestinians they pretend to care for.

Even worse, many of the firms that BDS targets are responsible for some of the most important technological advances in the world today.

The mistrust and mutual suspicion between Israel and Palestine can only be removed through building trade, commerce and a political contract that guarantees security and peace to all parties and an end to terrorism.

BDS is a sinister and deliberate barrier to peace, just another brick in the wall of hatred.

Twitter @rowandean

Link: http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/opinion-wall-up-against-waters-stance-on-israel/story-fnihsr9v-1227429333081