Roger Waters Livid At Israeli Reverence For Wall

“I’m going to put a stop to this nonsense. Even if it takes two thousand years.”

New York, October 28 – A leading figure in the movement to impose a cultural boycott on Israel expressed shock and anger today that the Jewish state enables and encourages people to visit and pray at a wall, a policy that the former Pink Floyd musician says is obviously a response to his band’s 1979 album The Wall.

Roger Waters, the lyricist and bassist for Pink Floyd, has for years lobbied other artists not to perform in Israel, to protest the country’s treatment of Palestinians. While the actual impact of that campaign is difficult to assess, Waters gave an interview with Throwing Stone yesterday in which he said he was “livid” at the appropriation of his most commercially successful project by an entity he so vociferously opposes.

“When I first saw footage of this wall, of people flocking to it and praying near it, I was stunned,” said the 72-year-old. “I spent years of my life working on The Wall back in the late seventies. I poured my soul into that project. And now those evil bastards are exploiting my efforts, my investment, my publicity, and my art to get Jews to worship their God at an actual wall? The arrogance makes me want to put my fist through a… well, you know.”

The Western Wall, as it is commonly known, has become a prime destination for worshipers and tourists alike, either out of religious connection to the last remnant of the ancient Jewish temple complex, a sense of history, curiosity, or some combination thereof. Millions of people come to the site each year, with the Jewish holidays attracting hundreds of thousands at a time – about 1.5 million visited this year during the month of Tishrei alone, which this year straddled September and October on the secular calendar. Visits to the wall have increased steadily despite Waters’s efforts, and those of his allies in the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions movement, to convince people not to visit, support, or engage in commerce with Israel. That increase makes the phenomenon of Israeli exploitation of his Wall even more frustrating, says Waters.

“I’m doing everything I can, but it doesn’t seem to be working – yet.” he conceded. “But persistence is important. It may take a very long time, but I’m going to put a stop to this nonsense. Even if it takes two thousand years.”

He added that there were also rumors that Jews were making unauthorized use of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon concept album every month by marking the reappearance of the new moon.