Have Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters perform in Frankfurt, Germany

Petition launched by Katie Halper

Link to sign the petition

We artists, musicians, writers and other public figures and organizations are deeply disturbed by the recent efforts of German officials to discredit and silence the musician Roger Waters. On 24 February 2023, the Frankfurt City Council and the state government of Hesse announced the cancellation of a Waters concert scheduled for 28 May at the Festhalle. Frankfurt City Council says the cancellation of Waters’ concert “gave a clear signal against anti-Semitism”, describing the musician as “one of the most famous anti-Semites in the world”. As evidence, the Council says Waters “repeatedly called for a cultural boycott of Israel, drew comparisons to the apartheid regime in South Africa and pressured artists to cancel events in Israel.”

There is no other evidence beyond these two claims: Waters supported the Palestinian-led campaign for a cultural boycott of Israel and compared contemporary Israeli rule to the apartheid regime in South Africa. None of these statements are unique to Waters. Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Israel’s B’Tselem, United Nations agencies and South African officials have referred to Israel as an apartheid state, and thus many of these organizations and individuals have likened Israel to apartheid in the past in force in South Africa. The extremists are the Israeli government, not its critics. Recently, Israeli citizens have taken to the streets to protest their government’s violent treatment of Palestinians and sweeping undemocratic judicial changes.

The Waters’ criticism of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians they are part of his longstanding advocacy of human rights around the world. Waters believes that all of our brothers and sisters around the world, regardless of the color of their skin or the depth of their pockets, deserve equal human rights under the law. Regarding Israel and Palestine, he says: “My platform is simple: it is the implementation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 for all our brothers and sisters between the Jordan River and the sea. Anti-Semitism is hateful and racist and I condemn it, along with all forms of racism, unreservedly.”

German officials who vilify Waters are engaging in a dangerous campaign that purposely blends criticism of Israel’s illegal and unjust policies with anti-Semitism. This merger perpetuates the anti-Semitic cliché that presents Jews as a monolith blindly supporting Israel. Some of Israel’s most vocal critics are Jews, but those who weaponize anti-Semitism are contributing to it.

German officials, concert organizers and music platforms must not bow to pressure from individuals and groups who would rather see Waters’ music removed than engage with the issues his music highlights. We ask those who canceled Waters concerts to think again and consider their history of anti-Semitism, racism and genocide and how these cases can be stopped today in other parts of the world, including occupied Palestine.

Signatories:

Brian Eno, musician

Peter Gabriel, musician

Anwar Hadid, musician

Tom Morello, musician

Noam Chomsky, professor of linguistics, University of Arizona

Cornel West, professor, philosopher, author, activist

Susan Sarandon, actress

Ken Loach, film director

Nick Mason, drummer

Eric Clapton, musician

Gabor Maté, physician and author

Immortal Technique, artist and producer

Low Key, rapper and activist

Andrew Feinstein, author and former ANC Member of Parliament

Julian Schnabel, artist and film producer

Robert Wyatt, musician

Dread Scott, artist

Emily Jacir, artist

Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, Lecturer in Modern and Media Culture and Comparative Literature, Brown University

Ilan Pappé, historian

Julie Christie, actress

Michael Malarkey, musician

Terry Gilliam, film director and actor

Norman Finkelstein, writer and professor

John Pilger, journalist

Sophie Calle, artist

Artists for Palestine, UK

Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers

Beth Miller, Policy Director of Jewish Voice for Peace

Medea Benjamin, Code Pink

Yanis Varoufakis, author

Noura Erakat, human rights lawyer and author

Susan Abulhawa, author of Mornings in Jenin

Miko Peled, author and activist

David Cross, comedian, actor, writer and director

Ramin Bahrani, film director

Alia Shawkat, actress

Sara Driver, film director

Caryl Churchill, playwright

Lady Bunny, Performer

Alexei Sayle, actor, author, comedian

Adam Broomberg, artist, educator and activist

John Smith, Artist, Filmmaker, Emeritus Professor of Fine Arts, University of East London

Rosalind Nashashibi, artist

Glenn Greenwald, reporter

Chris Hedges, journalist, Pulitzer Prize winner

Katie Halper, journalist

Vijay Prashad, journalist

Abby Martin, journalist and director

Mike Prysner, journalist and director

Mohamed Hadid, developer

Robert Scheer, reporter, USC Annenberg professor

Krystal Ball, reporter

Eugene Puryear, journalist

Rania Khlek, Ggornalist

Ros Petchesky, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Hunter College and Graduate Center-CUNY, Jewish Voice For Peace

Gerald Horne, Historian, John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair in History and African-American Studies at the University of Houston

Steven Donziger, human rights lawyer

Adolph Reed, Jr., professor emeritus of political science, University of Pennsylvania

Greg Grandin, professor of history at Yale University

Daniel Bessner, historian

Frank Barat, film producer

Tami Gold, Filmmaker, Professor of Film and Media Studies at Hunter College

Omar Al-Qattan, film producer and cultural activist

Josh Olson, screenwriter

Zeina Durra, director

Vin Arfuso, producer, director

Karen Zelermyer, podcast “I Was Never There”

Christian Parenti, John Jay Professor of Political Economy, CUNY

Marcie Smith Parenti, writer and lawyer

Noah Kulwin, writer

Nora Eisenberg, writer and journalist

Dave Anthony, writer

Freddie DeBoer, writer

Robin DG Kelly, writer, professor of American history at UCLA.

Greg Goldberg, chair of Wesleyan University’s Department of Sociology

Felix Hoffmann, art historian and artistic director of Foto Arsenal Wien

Barbara Smith, writer and activist

Doug Henwood, journalist/radio host

Liza Featherstone, journalist

Margaret Kimberley, editor, Black Agenda Report

Nora Barrows-Friedman, journalist

Yasha Levine, journalist

Mark Ames, journalist

Adam Horowitz, Mondoweiss journalist

Phil Weiss, writer

Michael Mack, editor

Max Blumenthal, reporter, The Grayzone

Stefania Maurizi, investigative journalist

Norman Solomon, reporter, Jacobin

Alfreda Benge, artist

Bill Morrison, artist and director

Alessandra Sanguinetti, photographer

Robin Rhode, artist

Jim Goldberg, artist/professor emeritus of the California College of the Arts

Alec Soth, photographer

Jewish Voice For Peace

Nina Felshin, art curator, writer

Tai Shani, artist

AND THOUSANDS OF OTHERS!