all in all he's just another prick by the wall
British musician Roger Waters is in the country for a show at Neve Shalom. Yesterday, he took it upon himself to visit the separation barrier in Bethlehem. With fortuitous timing too, seeing as how press cameras happened to be around, he wrote the emotion-inducing words “Tear Down this Wall” in red spray paint.

Thanks Roger. We all know walls are bad. Even walls meant to protect people from hostile neighbors. Like the ones surrounding your mansion in Hampshire, England (rough neighborhood, I know). Why don’t you set a good example and tear that wall first? Don’t worry about the occasional crazed fan breaking in. His life is rough, and that’s partially your fault after all, so give the poor fella a break.

And while your at it, that fenced off water front mansion of yours in the Hamptons? Well, me and some of my friends in New York were thinking of hitting the beach in the Hamptons this summer and your fence limits our freedom of movement. We expect to find your “extraordinarily oppressive” walls down. And your fridge stocked with beer.

Haaretz noted that in 1990, Waters performed “The Wall” along the Berlin Wall that separated East and West Germany to celebrate reunification (the Berlin Wall was dismantled in 1989). Waters commented on the seperation wall here in Israel ‘It may be a lot harder to get this one down, but eventually it must happen,”

Hey Roger! To help that process along, please feel free to go to Ramallah and Jenin and spray “Stop Suicide Bombers” any time you like. What? Not so much? Didn’t think so.

About the author

Laya Millman

43 Comments

  • The police are predicting 45,000 people at Waters’ show in Neve Ilan. The day I spend time and money to see a washed up 62 year old fart perform, please shoot me. Like immediately. Instead I will be at Uganda wishing Mobius a happy birthday. Great title Laya!

  • Need we point out that the cowardice of his country men is 90% to blame to most of the crap in the region. is there anything more cowardly and impotent than an Englishman? Do you have the address of his Hamptons home? I will go spray it myself this weekend.

  • Well, duh…suicide bombing is a legitimate act of resistance and self-defense. Building a fence to protect innocent people from being blown up is an act of provocation.

    Uhhhh…

    • He might not be quite dead yet, but the attention-seeking of the ageing trendoit by red graffitti can is just another form of mid-life angst.

  • Tableman: He’s next door to P. Diddy’s house. Send me the bill for the red spray paint.

    Tiff: Is it any wonder I love my little sister so, so much?

  • I just came across the Haaretz article a minute ago. Yesterday we were debating buying tickets last minute and now I am a glad we didn’t. Not only is Water’s whole wall philosophy a poor one at best (the Berlin wall was never constructed to keep out suicide bombers and germans are germans on both sides. Israelis and Palestinians never were and never will be one people)he also caved in to pressure from British leftist groups and moved the concert from Hayarkon park in tel aviv to neveh shalom. he won’t be seeing my money any time soon. and happy birhtday to mobius.

  • Youre all missing the point. First of all, he doesn’t live in Israel, so of course he doesn’t get it. What he is protesting is the whole political situation, on all sides, that produces a situation that the wall exists.
    We should be aware that the wall causes great hardships to the Arab population.Regardless of the why’s and justifications of the wall.
    Before you start bashing me, I am in favor of the wall. I happen to think it is not enough. U miss the point of Pink Floyds music, and he is not an old fart. I saw him just the other day on Public Television. I would pay to see the group.
    They promote a utopian escapist vision of the world and our lives in it.
    So it’s not hip hop. But you can enjoy the show.

  • Roger Waters 2006 isn’t my bag. But it’s cool if you like him. God forbid I should tell anyone to boycott the show! And your points about the wall are well taken. Luckily we have a fairly active Supreme Court here to help balance out valid security concerns with eggregious human rights issues. Sadly, some have forced us to extreme measures in order to secure our physical safety. But I too look forward to the day when the wall, 90% of which is just a stupid fence for cryin out loud, will no longer be neccessary. Sadly, that time is not right now.

  • You rule, Laya.

    Kiss my Jewish ass, you fucking cowardly hypocritical Limey prick.

  • Not to incite vandalism or anything like that, but it would absolutely rock if someone spray painted “tear down that wall” on the walls and doors of every anti-Wall org, including the UN and the International Court of Justice. And when I say “rock” I mean a justified act of political protest, of course.

  • update: As you may know, the concert took place in Neve Shalom specifically so Palestinians could attend. A nice gesture. So, to this mixed audience Mr. Waters called on “the Israeli’s of this generation to tear down the walls and make peace with their neighbors.”

    Uhhh? Why not ask that of the Israel’s AND the Palestinians in the audience??? Why not address just the Palestinians of this generation to make peace with their neighbors so we CAN tear down that damn ugly wall?

    Geez, talk about thought control.

  • Sensitive, humanitarian Roger. Oh, please show us your creative and artistic vision of peace. Scrawl it across that hideous thing that keeps the Palestinian people from embracing their Israeli neighbors in love and warmth. Poor Roger, you yearn to help an impoverished people who are so desperate to be heard! Listen, Roger, can’t you hear them crying out? Listen closely Roger… BOOM!

    A drumroll and guitar riff for some clarity please…
    Like any of the multitude of classic rock cause junkies, Mr. Waters thinks he has jumped on the “help the underdog” bandwagon. It’s all “the Man’s” fault, and of course the “Man” is any large, organized, democratic entity – in this case, it must be Israel! After all, as every misinformed and arrogant celebrity-activist knows, there are no bad people, only bad governments.

    Where’s Mark Chapman when you need him? (just kidding, jeez)

  • Very good point. The hypocrite has-been has the chutzpah to demand that the wall in Israel be torn down, yet has walls around his own damn property. He is so full of it that he needs toilet paper whenever he speaks. Furthermore, he really should address the young Palestinians in the audience with regards to future peace. After all, the suicide bombers and genocidal activists are from THEIR group.

  • “…he wrote the emotion-inducing words “Tear Down this Wall” in red spray paint.”

    Why does the picture depict him writing “No thought control”?

  • He’s just an aging rock star well past his prime so who cares?

    I mean, if Israel wasn’t filled with semi-mystical pseudo-hippies who still think it’s cool to listen to a 1970s band he can’t even tour with any more, who would be listening to this guy’s take on a small part of a barrier that’s 90% fence? Israeli papers are covering this guy as if he’s the Pope.

    Sheesh!

  • it’s just the way europeans deal with the holocaust – making us as bad as the nazis.
    (it was a GREAT concert though)

  • I’m sorry but their music is still much better than most of the crap u hear today.

    No way he is past his prime. Look, basically, he is against the occupation.

    I think we should be mature enough to accept someone’s view even if we disagree.

  • As a white South African I know how you feel. White and blacks will never be one people in SA. They are even more different than Israelis are to Arabs.
    I wonder then why the Jewish lobby in the US and UK was so intent on bringing down the ‘wall’ of aphartheid? IN fact the only opposition MP in the aphartheid government was a Jewish lady, Helen Suzman. Other powerful Jewish owned companies also worked for the collapse of aphartheid.
    Interesting that the same principles were not applied to white South Africans as you apply to yourselves.

  • This has me so angered that I am going to respond during shabbos. William…South Africa SEGREGATED its native black population and was an apartheid state. In Israel, Arabs have equal rights under law, are citizens, are members of the Knesset and the Supreme Court.

    Wow. Please do not group us with pro-apartheid Afrikaaners. PLEASE.

  • William, there is no such thing as a monolithic “Jewish lobby” in either the US or UK, although there are numerous Jewish organizations and some were vocal and aggressive about ending apartheid. As you noted, the Jewish community in SA was also very active in opposing apartheid and trying to bring down the apartheid government, some Jews risking their well-being and freedom during those hard years. This is because many among the Jewish people do seek justice and a desire to live in an ethical world. That should be a strong hint to you that perhaps your last sentence is off the mark.

    Sadly, your final sentence seeks to find parallels between Israel and South Africa and I’m afraid that along with your mistaken view of a monolithic Jewish lobby, you are wrong once again. As Adam noted, non-Jewish Israeli Arabs vote in Israel at all levels of government, and their vote counts just like any Jewish Israeli’s. They can marry people of other faiths or ethnic backgrounds. They can operate businesses with the exact same rules which apply to Jewish citizens. They can ride on buses and use any facility in the country save for military ones in the same way as the Jews of Israel. That’s not to say there isn’t discrimination, there is and 60 years of fighting the Arab world has not eased the pressure on either the Jewish and many non-Jewish residents of Israel. That, as I’m sure you know, is very different than apartheid and taken together with the other information you now have, should make clear to you that the parallel with SA is convenient for the enemies of Israel to use but has nothing to do with reality. After all, Israel can point to a High Court Justice who is a non-Jewish Arab Israeli, to Members of the Knesset (parliament) who are non-Jewish Arabs and some of whom represent their constituents inside the mainstream parties including one who is currently Deputy Speaker of the Knesset. They can point to Arab non-Jews who work in Israel’s diplomatic corps, to some who have received advanced ranks in the Israel Defense Forces and to family subsidies that support their families that tend to be larger than those of secular Jews. Those family and health subsidies, by the way, are equal to those of Jews. The discrimination is on the education front relative to those Orthodox Jews, but secular Jews also receive less per capita than they do because of quirks in the coalition governments needed to run the country in Israel’s parliamentary system.

    In other words, this is certainly not apartheid and never has been.

    If you read Israel’s formative document, the Declaration of Israel’s Independence of 1948, you will read:

    THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

    Now, if you’re referring to Gaza, Judea and Samaria, where the Security Barrier is going up, then you’re talking about something very different. First of all, Israel has not annexed most of these areas. Those areas which have been annexed offer their residents the same rights as any Israeli. Second, in the un-annexed areas, the Palestinians live under the rule and government of the Palestinian Authority, their own elected government. Third, if they would change their mind-set to stop attacking Israeli civilians (they like to call this “resistance” but attacking civilians is not guerrila warfare and it’s not warfare and it’s not resistance, it’s murder) and actually negotiate in good faith and realistically about a compromise solution wherein two states could exist side by side without the non-Jewish one trying to continually destroy the Jewish one, there would be peace very quickly and a Palestinian state to follow almost immediately.

    Until then, however, Israel must do what it can to protect its citizens from the unfortunate predilection of the Palestinians to attack Israeli civilians. The Security BARRIER, which Waters refers to as The Wall and mistakenly compares to Berlin’s Wall, is comprised of about 90% fence and about 10% wall and is part of the overall strategy both for protecting Israeli civilians from attacks and also for creating a division between Israel and its Jewish AND Arab citizens from the Palestinians who will end up in a future Palestine. Earlier today, a Palestinian minister from the Palestinian Authority excluded the possibility that Jews could live in a future Palestine or territory which the Palestinians gain from the Israelis. So who is seeking an apartheid, exclusionary state?

    You feel better now that you know this has nothing to do with apartheid, don’t you?

  • Roger, Please put down the graffiti can, K? It’s past time for you to grow up, in case you hadn’t looked lately. You’re embarrassing yourself, your parents, your country and the one your a guest in. Please shut-up and sing….I’m begging you.

  • I fully agree with putting up a wall like you are doing. It should be a permanent thing. South Africans now have their houses surrounded by walls and electric fences. We don’t have suicide bombers, but we have people bent on sadistic revenge who attack and rape and murder people of all ages inside their homes. And the ‘crime’ which is actually ethnic cleansing, is all black on white.

    So the situation in Israel is not exactly the same as aphartheid SA. But I think Israel would be the country that comes closest to aphartheid policies. I heard that Arabs living in Israel basically have no rights to education. But I would have to find the sources again before I got in an argument.

    Also that Israel gives prospective immigrants a DNA test. Is that not racism? Don’t you think that Africans or perhaps Chinese immigrants could become loyal citizens of Israel? Look at the French football team. The French seem to be welcoming of all types of immigrants.

    In aphartheid SA blacks were not forced to live in South Africa. There were large ‘homelands’ consisting of enormous tracts of very fertile land, which were separate countries. Some of these were the Transkei, Venda, Bophuthatswana, Ciskei. Here blacks could live totally free of any discrimination from white people, build their own cities etc. But most of them chose to live in South Africa. I’m guessing that most Arabs would rather live in Israeli cities as well.

    And come on, there is definately a very strong Jewish lobby in the USA, although ‘monolithic’ isn’t the right word. Its more a ‘powerful, behind the scenes’ lobby. AIPAC and ADL come to mind straight away. And with 3 of the 4 biggest media conglomerates in Jewish control, including newspapers like the NY Times and the Washington Post, don’t you agree that constitutes a very powerful lobby? If someone makes anti-Semetic statements in America, the ADL can basically financially ruin them. That says to me the Jewish lobby is infinitely stronger than any other ethnic lobby, say the Egyptian, Indonesian or Italian lobbys.

  • No, William, non-Jewish citizens in Israel receive education. Where are you getting this? The other day the a Beduin woman was the first to earn her MD in Israel. http://ontheface.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2006/6/15/2033432.html

    Immigrants do not get a DNA test. Where do you get that?

    Your last paragraph is just too tiresome to respond to. Really. Jewish control or ownership of a media outlet (and your information is wrong on the numbers anyway) doesn’t mean they are part of a lobby. The suggestion that the ADL can financially ruin somebody is absurd. Did you go to some anti-Israel websites after I gave you my considered and informative response above? Really, what hateful and false bullshit.

  • Oh, William, don’t forget that we eat the first-born of non-Jewish families as a pre-condition for citizenship.

    Mmmm…goy blood….*drool*

  • who the helkl is Roger Waters?
    Whoever he is, he should move to Israel – or perhaps he prefers the west bank – before he makes any other stupid comments. Besides, who told him he could deface our wall!

  • Who opened for Waters in Israel? The Dixie (Yankee?) Chicks?

  • Please don’t insult the rest of the talented band members who threw out the whiny megalomaniac novice bass player from the band by including Roger in Pink Floyd. Guy Pratt takes Roger’s bass lines which were mostly penned and performed by David Gilmour, and makes them sing unlike Roger ever wiched he could. For g-d’s sakes, he’s the Ringo, except Ringo had more skills.

  • yeah, Israeli’s seem very accomodating of immigrants and people with other beliefs:

    By Jonathan Lis, Haaretz Correspondent

    A group of 50 pro-Israel Christian tourists came under attack Wednesday from some 100 residents of the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Mea She’arim in Jerusalem.

    Three of the tourists and a police officer were wounded in the attack. They received treatment at the scene.

    The tourists arrived at Mea She’arim wearing orange T-shirts with the words “Love your neighbor as yourself” printed across them.

    As they neared one of the squares, the local residents apparently identified them as Christians and began to hit them.

  • William, what exactly does this have to do with “Israel being accomodating of immigrants and people with other beliefs?”

    So far in this discussion you’ve exhibited some animosity and a great deal of ignorance.

    Do you have any idea how many Christians visit Israel as tourists annually? Do you know how many of those are treated well and never have a problem? The answers are millions and virtually all of them.

    Are you aware that in Israel every religion has its own council which is in charge of that religion’s civic responsibilities such as marriage and divorce, not to mention oversight over holy places? Are you aware that all of these councils are equal under the law without any preference for the Jewish Rabbinate over the other councils?

    Are you aware that in 1967 when Israel reconquered east Jerusalem, the first action of the government was to return control of the Haram al Sharif (part of which is the Dome of the Rock which you’ll recognize by its golden dome) to the Waqf, the Islamic council which controls it? It did this even though this mosque is built over Judaism’s holiest site, that of the Temple? Are you aware that every Christian group with ownership of buildings and property in Israel is respected and free to worship as they please while having the right to control their buildings, such as for example the Church of the Holy Sepulchre?

    Are you aware that the group you mention in that article above represents a small percentage of the general population, has caused problems to the state of Israel fairly recently with demonstrations and violations of law? Did you miss the part where a police officer was injured by the demonstrators?

    If you have questions, William, we’ll answer them. This misguided and misinformed hostility, however, is a bit tiresome. If you have genuine questions, why don’t you bother asking instead of attacking without knowing of what you speak?

  • Okay, those without any commen friggin sense, please pay attention. Roger Waters was not saying to tear down the wall because he doesn’t like that it exsists. He wants the reasons BEHIND the wall torn down. The wall itself is SYMBOLIC of failure. The need of the wall is a failure. Waters I’m sure would LOVE to see open boarders, but not at the cost of security. In Roger’s utopean vision, the wall would never be as it would not be needed. As he cannot put a slogan on a belief, he can do the next best thing and sloganize the symbol.

    How DARE any of you deride Waters and than cry and moan about the need for the wall anyways? It is Waters right to say whatever the hell he wants. You don’t like it, don’t listen. Don’t buy his tickets as there are plenty of others out there that will.

    And Eric, you know jack shit about Pink Floyd. Roger quit (was not fired), he QUIT. He quit when Rick went on his cocain binge, Mason was to busy collecting cars and Gilmour was doing crap solo albums. Roger wrote the songs that the other three pranced around the world singing and playing from 1987-1994. Waters may not be the best bass player, but he is one of the greatest writers and that makes him far and away more valuable than Ringo. Learn your shit and than come talk to me.

    All of you, quit bitching. You want to stand up on a soap box and cry about Waters hurting your feelings (what is all this is about to ANYONE with a molecule of common sense to see what Waters really wants), than accept Waters right to do the same.