Musician says he is a victim of an “Israeli lobby” campaign and is therefore unable to stay in Montevideo and Buenos Aires
Musician Roger Waters said that “the Israeli lobby” meant that he was unable to stay in hotels in South America and, therefore, he would stay in São Paulo while doing shows on the continent. He performs in Montevideo (Uruguay) on Friday (17.Nov.2023) and in Buenos Aires (Argentina) next week.
“Somehow, these idiots in the Israeli lobby managed to co-opt every hotel in Buenos Aires and Montevideo and organize this extraordinary boycott based on the malicious lies they have been telling about me”, said Waters in an interview with the newspaper Page 12. “They do this because I believe in human rights and speak openly about the genocide of the Palestinian people. And I will continue to do so”he completed.
According to the publication, the hotel where the musician was staying in Montevideo received an email in which the president of the Israeli Central Committee of Uruguay, Roby Schindler, said that Waters is “misogynistic, xenophobic and anti-Semitic” and that the musician “if takes advantage of his fame as an artist to lie and spew his hatred against Israel and all Jews”. The text reads that the hotel, by hosting him, would be, “even if you don’t want to”, propagating the “hatred that this man exudes” and “contributing to the increase in Judeophobia”.
The musician stated that “these people, the Roby Schindlers of this world“try”silence him” because he believes in human rights. “It is a colonial society that prevents nothing, not even mass murder.”, he said, adding that “this society” he wants “proclaim their supremacy over other peoples and other religions”. According to him, “the people of the world have to stop them”.
Waters stated that he had not received an explanation for not being able to stay in hotels. “They just say ‘they don’t have a room’. And I know that in Montevideo they have been telling people for weeks, in all the newspapers, not to buy tickets for the show“, he said. The artist states that his presentation “It’s very political, very frontal”.
The musician said: “I’m running out of breath, I’ve said everything I could say. I hope that, in the future, our lives cross paths to talk more in depth about music. But now I’m in the middle of a war. And it is not the war against me that matters to me, but the carnage of brothers and sisters in Gaza. This is what is important to talk about today. Not the feelings of the Israeli lobby: they deserve our contempt. And yes, I am deeply angry, this is a crazy and absurd joke, but we have to do something about it”.
UNDERSTAND WHAT GENOCIDE IS
The word “genocide” has frequented Brazilian political news in recent times, especially because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Governments and politicians were classified as genocidal for not following the standard recommended procedures for combating coronavirus.
It turns out that being irresponsible or making decisions contrary to common sense in the area of public health or in places of war conflicts does not constitute genocide, when the real meaning of the term is taken into account. O Power360 made a report on what genocide is: read it here.
The word genocide appeared in 1944, during the Second World War. It was created by lawyer Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959), a Polish Jew, to conceptualize the abuses suffered by victims of the Nazi government. It comes from the junction of genosa Greek word meaning “tribe”with cideLatin expression for “to kill”.
According to professor at the PUC-Rio Law Institute, Michael Freitas Mohallem, “Genocide is the act of destroying a group, whether ethnic or religious, but it has an important element which is the intention of an agent to eradicate a specific group”. In short, whoever commits genocide needs to deliberately wish to exterminate a population group.
In 1948, genocide began to be defined as a crime when the UN (United Nations) held an event to address the issue, the “Convention for the Prevention and Suppression of the Crime of Genocide”. Within the framework of international law, the organization’s member countries undertake to monitor and punish possible perpetrators.
In the case of the war between Hamas and Israel, the conflict began after an attack by sea, land and air by the extremist group on Israeli territory on October 7, 2023. In this surprise military attack, Hamas killed men, women and children without distinction, including more than 200 young people who participated in a rave (party). The group has a public statute in which one of its purposes includes the extinction of Israel.
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