This week, on the “(Is It) Good for the Jews?” podcast …
Larry Rosen: Let’s talk about Radiohead, shall we? They [recently played] in Israel, and the latest celebrity to support Radiohead for playing in Israel is … ?
Eric Goldbrener: Michael Stipe!
LR: A very gnome-y Michael Stipe, sporting a beard down to his chest.
EG: I saw the beard and thought, “Of course you’re with the Jews.”
LR: He looks like Mel Brooks as the 2,000 Year-Old Man. Here’s the problem: Mike is with Radiohead here, but his explanation is that he “hopes this sparks a dialogue to bring the occupation to an end.” That’s a lukewarm endorsement.
EG: What these celebrities are saying is, “We’ll play in Israel but we don’t endorse Israel’s policies. We just don’t think a cultural boycott serves our interests.”
LR: They’re playing under duress?
EG: It’s smart business. How many of those English artists made their fortunes selling records in the U.K.? The U.K. isn’t a large enough market …
LR: … to get them to the point where they become millionaire blowhards like Roger Waters.
EG: They all made their fortunes in the U.S. They came here in the ’60s, and what was going on? We had segregation, the Watts riots … they saw it first hand. They came, they made political statements, but they still came and made money.
LR: So Radiohead [proceeded with the Israel show] as if they were “activist artists” from the ’60s?
EG: Right.
LR: But here’s the thing that bugs me: Radiohead [plays], Mike Stipe supports them, but nobody is coming to the defense of Israel.
EG: Why should they?
LR: If Roger Waters is running around comparing Israel to Nazis, saying it’s “the most brutal regime in the world,” someone’s got to call him out because that’s actually factually incorrect.
EG: I see two things here. On the one hand you’ve got Roger Waters saying Israel is like Nazis. Go ahead, say whatever you want.
LR: I wouldn’t mind laying that guy out. But he probably knows karate. All of those old ’60s guys learned karate. They wanted to be like Elvis.
EG: (ignoring Larry) If Roger Waters says “don’t play Israel” and tries to get you to respect his boycott, your response is to explain why you don’t respect the boycott. You don’t have to address his other views. You don’t have to defend Israel. All you have to do is say “I don’t believe in cultural boycotts.”
LR: It would be nice if they said, “I don’t believe in this cultural boycott.”
EG: But they’ve got to be careful.
LR: Is this exclusively an English thing? I ask because …
EG: Yes, it is.
LR: … Guns N’ Roses just played Tel Aviv.
EG: Guns N’ Roses is different. They’re bad-ass. And Slash is a Hebrew.
LR: He’s half Hebrew.
EG: Which half?
LR: His hair. OK, but I was wondering: Why [wasn’t] anyone telling Axl Rose that he can’t do this? Relevance? Who cares about Guns N’ Roses?
EG: You don’t mess with Axl Rose! “You talkin’ to me, Roger Waters? Old man Roger Waters?”
LR: I’m telling you. Roger Waters knows karate.
EG: He does not! He’s an old man! Listen: When the Angels of Death Metal played in Israel, it was major.
LR: Did anyone threaten them?
EG: It was Roger Waters! He says, “Think of the statement you’re making,” and the guy on stage says, “I don’t know what he’s talking about. This is great!”
LR: That’s the response I want.
EG: Rock stars have a great time playing Israel. I saw Iggy Pop there and he said, “This is the greatest place. Great looking girls, great beer …”
LR: I think there’s something wrong with Roger Waters.
EG: Find me the racist content in the writings of the original Zionists, Roger! Show me the plan to invade neighboring countries! It didn’t happen. Roger Waters is lying!
LR: And probably in a very calm voice, which is annoying. Dude is obsessed, and that calm voice isn’t fooling anyone.
EG: And he’s very, very popular. He’s chosen Israel to be his thing.
LR: Terrible for the Jews. Toss those Pink Floyd albums, Jews; replace them with Radiohead. Even the later albums that don’t have guitars on them.
Roger has no hate for Israel. He has an opinion about policies of the current conservative Israeli administration toward “the Palestinian Situation”. He, and hundreds of artists and leaders around the world have agreed to be outspoken about these policies. Somehow, his outspokenness has been percieved as hatred, which can’t be farther from the truth. If you pay attention to his long and impressive career, you’ll see that he is a very compassionate man, an advocate for peace, altruistic with his time and money, and doesn’t shy away from expressing his views and passion in his music.
He simply wants a dialogue to speak of the rights violations of a people who have no voice.
Yeah – he just compares them to Nazis and is silent every time Palestinians or other Muslims/Arabs attack Israel/Israelis. Johnny Rotten played Israel and gave an interview on why he ignored BDS. You can google it but the bottom line is he asks why Israel is always singled out.
LR: … to get them to the point where they become millionaire blowhards like Roger Waters.
I guess I never read or heard him compare them to Nazis. We may disagree here, but I love your username. Are you the Art Vandolet who’s an architect, Latex salesman, or Marine Biologist?
You are uninformed, but that’s okay because I used to read the daily tabloid which only cost a quarter. Then 30 years ago I went to a Roger Waters concert which opened with an animation of a man being decapitated during the song, “Welcome to the Machine.” Then midway through the show a spotlight came on from the back of the stage that was aimed at where I sat in the arena. At the time I was ignorant of domestic terrorist organizations such as the Arizona Patriots who had plotted to bomb landmarks in 1986. The first song on Roger Waters’ album “Radio K. A. O. S.,” entitled, “Radio Waves,” invokes the name of Jesus while secretly extolling these malcontents. There’s a reference in this song alluding to a plot to bomb the Oklahoma City Federal Building that was hatched in northern Arkansas in 1983 and consumated in 1995.
“For the self-will of the simple kills them, the smugness of fools destroys them” (Proverbs 1:32).
No, he has a Jewish problem. He gave an interview in Counter Punch magazine where he said Jewish folks in the Music Biz were hurting his career–this was after his Wall Tour grossed over 200 million doallrs and he mad almost 40 million himself. Don’t defend this racist.
This clowsn of the Jnews and Jerusalem post, MUST lie to its readers art any cost. They know little on Floyd and less even on radiohead.
The dumb clowns who speak bad on Roger do not know him. They just hate anyone challaging the ‘land of milk and honey’ Meaning they feel like their man made created cult religion is being challenged.
I am jewish and know this all too fuekn well. Mindwashed people all around US.
Bibi is tough .. but so though he is BAD for Israel. Period.
I’ve paid attention to Roger Waters’ career and I just couldn’t help but notice how he always needs a victim to take his agressions out against. I wouldn’t call him “compassionate,” not when he just spent years touring the world reveling in his Neo-Nazi fantasy that was on full display every time he performed that scary song, “Run Like Hell” during “The Wall” concert. It’s a simulation of a Nazi hate rally. But oh he’s so compassionate the way he makes music videos about a fictional Syrian refugee woman who dances in one video and puts on make-up in another, making it obvious that his so called compassion has strings attached as long as this victim of war goes out her way to act sexy for him. He committed adultery with an Israeli journalist and writer, Rula Jabreal, in the hope of harnessing her anti-Israel activism for his own agenda. But much to her horror, he only associates with the low life extremists.
Some of what you say may be true. The “Run Like He’ll” sequence on the Wall tour and movie may have Nazi images and rhetoric, but I think you missed the point. He doesn’t need a “victim”as you say to trounce upon, he simply calls out an injustice when he sees it. Unless you see Donald Trump as a victim, then perhaps this discussion would be meaningless to both of us. I’m not saying he’s a perfect man, I just think that those who say he is anti semetic may misunderstand why he is being outspoken about the issues.
Waters uses Donald Trump the same way the anarchists are using Trump as an excuse for mayhem and thus play into the schemes of this Mussolini wannabe to use heavy-handed methods in suppressing free speech. The extremists on the far right and the far left only feed off each other.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4d499fd77592ef1ad1c160c237ea1ec1e495d5676ae07a0f335d5fcb604f814a.jpg
He has no hate! All of his props, the pig with the star of David and his nazi uniform, his spitting on fans and on and on,are all the same as the pictures we have here in our holocaust museum! He could have been Hitler’s Goebels! Watch the film on him Wish You Weren’t Here” coming out this summer. Everyone else knows his is antisemitic!
I totally agree with you.
If u actually done a little research you would find out a lot about Israel is this misinformation or r u a shit journalist pathetic whats goin on with the middle east hmmm ?
I will open for Roger with this song. http://kernersongs.com/GetItRight.htm
Mike Stipe of REM is against Bibi YOU dumb clowns!
He is personal friends with Thom.. so decided to back him on this.
YOU COMPLETE mind washed relgisious cult morons, have no idea on
r a d i o h e a d as a band nor the reason they felt OBLIGATED to appear and perform. Much of it is about Jonny living there and nothing to do with RH support the right winged maggot Bibi.
We elite and savvy new yorkers who are fully jewish.. laugh and curse
you clown in the JWeekly. Roger is honest about things and while he has MAJOR personality issues to do with his father being killed in Italy in WWII..
He is never the less the founder of Pink Floyd and while he with no doubt
has run across maybe seedy jewish music execs is NOT anit semitic.
That is ALL a fuekn lie that YOU jokers tell the jewish people in Israel and in this country, so you make believe u know about him!
you people are a discrace.
all u nerds who like Bibi and think u are better.. are pathetic.
You should not be speaking lies about Roger, lies about Michael Stipe backing Bibi and thinking r a d i o h e a d played this show to support the nasty lying Bibi is delusional. I am fully jewish, high IQ and music expert (yep) Being delusional is literally part of all cutures when Religion comes –before– Logic and Love.
Faith in a relgion and the essesnce of what identifies your exsistence, allows
almost any level of delusion to set force in the mind to make it so.
You anti Floyd/WATERS nerds are fools. Making some jewish people who are simple people, hate on WATERS is a disgrace.
He generally LIKES jewish people in real life just not a tyrant in Bibi who brakes agreements for the desperate and often abused Palestinians.
if you readers .. any of you believe the words u read of these clowns then u have been fooled!
BIBI MUST GO. PERIOD. He won’t go till enough people in Isreal force him out! This prick is great friends with Donald Trump a known conman from my area and now leader of America. Soon to be impeached.
Israel is currently controled by right winged european origin jewish people. They do not want the majority to rule, are mind washed from religion and will do A N Y T H I N G to remain in power.
To hear Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection about Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, click here: https://youtu.be/C60YhWtS73Y