Roger Waters Educates The ADL

Roger Waters is the man who wrote “We don’t need no education”. Well, actually some people do, and in this twenty minute rant, he dispenses it. Musicians tend to be liberal, some ultra-liberal, in the classical sense. Waters is a long time supporter of Palestinian rights and an opponent of Zionism, something that doesn’t go down at all well with the misnamed Anti-Defamation League, the Israeli Government, or the German Government.

Recently, the former Pink Floyd frontman performed in Germany, and although he was given a standing ovation, the imagery he used didn’t go down at all well with the usual suspects. He was accused of dressing like a Nazi.

Although he doesn’t look it, Waters is nearly eighty years old, and his great age has only deepened his intransigence, hence his vitriolic response to his critics.

The ADL’s blast Roger Waters In His Own Words was updated last month, and includes his reference to Israel being an Apartheid state. This comparison is wrong, though not for the reasons the ADL claims. The colonial powers practised a form of white supremacy in Africa, one more paternalistic than oppressive. In Rhodesia, for example, the natives had voting rights subject to certain conditions. A native could vote if he had a certain income, owned a certain amount of property, had a good education, or was a chief.

The reason for this was to ensure that only the most capable citizens ruled the country. After Ian Smith threw in the towel under international pressure, the franchise was opened to all, including the uneducated and the illiterate; the result was the tyranny of Robert Mugabe, although to be fair, Mugabe did clamp down on sexual perversion.

In South Africa, blacks had fewer rights and the laws became extremely oppressive because of the unrelenting hate campaign against the country, particularly by communists. Rightly or wrongly, the South African Government felt it had to implement pass laws and such as the only way to protect the nation. The situation in Israel/Palestine was and is very different; the Palestinian population is highly educated, and under military occupation, they are treated like dogs. True, there was police brutality under Apartheid, but did the Government ever dynamite homes like the Israeli Government does? And can the Soweto massacre be compared with Operation Cast Lead, what Israel alludes to dishonestly as the Gaza War?

Of course, there is hatred on both sides, but Roger Waters has never condoned terrorism from any source. The claims of the ADL, Deborah Lipstadt and others that anyone who dares to talk about the real reasons the West supports Israel is a rabid anti-Semite peddling a Jewish conspiracy theory is so dishonest it is laughable. The reality is there has for decades been a powerful Zionist lobby, especially in Washington, although that lobby is now fractured; there are the hard line Zionists and those who seek the only true solution, a two state one. Additionally, there are many anti-Zionist Jews in the United States and elsewhere who use the same rhetoric including Max Blumenthal, Katie Halper and Miko Peled. Are they anti-Semites too, or are they like Roger Waters on the right side of history?