Pro-Palestinian Pink Floyd Front Man Tries to Book a Hotel, Soon Realizes Not Everyone Is Cheering for Gaza
Former Pink Floyd front man Roger Waters has been railing against Jews and Israel for decades, but it appears that his constant anti-Semitic rants are finally catching up to him after hotels in several South American countries refused to reserve a room for him to use during his upcoming concert tour of the area.
Waters has been virulently anti-Israel for many years. He most recently raised eyebrows for being accused of wearing a “Nazi-like” uniform during a performance in Berlin, Germany, just this year.
In May, the strident BDS-pushing singer was blasted for wearing a costume that resembled a Nazi SS officer’s uniform during some of his performances of songs from the 1982 film, “Pink Floyd: The Wall.”
His performance was investigated by German authorities, who ultimately decided it was allowable under the country’s “artistic freedom” policies.
Waters’ constant attacks on Jews, along with his support for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, also got several of his shows canceled in Poland in 2022.
Waters, 80, is also a critic of the U.S.A. Back in 2019, he urged the performers of the NFL’s Super Bowl Halftime Show to take a knee in protest against America and in support of anti-American NFL player Colin Kaepernick.
All of this and his vocal support of Hamas in Gaza seem to have been too much for the folks in Uruguay and Argentina.
It turned out that several hotels in Argentina and Uruguay refused to book rooms for his upcoming tour of the region.
For instance, Waters has scheduled his “This is Not a Drill” tour for Nov. 21 and 22 at Argentina’s capital of Buenos Aires. But when he tried to get places to stay in the city, his reservations were denied, the Associated Press reported.
Waters also found that hotels in nearby Uruguay’s Montevideo were also cut off for him.
The situation spurred the singer to run to the media to complain about the exclusionary tactics as he blamed the “Israeli lobby” for the situation.
“The city of Montevideo has been closed to me, I have nowhere to stay. I have to fly there directly on the day of the show,” Waters told the Uruguay daily Página/12, according to the report.
“I had a dinner date on the 16th with José Mujica, the former president of Uruguay, who is a friend of mine. And I can’t go (…) because the Israeli lobby and whatever they call themselves have canceled me.”
The Buenos Aires Times said Roby Schindler, the president of the Central Israelite Committee of Uruguay, had sent a letter to the Sofitel hotel agitating against allowing Waters to have a room there.
In his letter, Schindler said Waters “takes advantage of his fame as an artist to lie and spew his hatred towards Israel and all Jews.” Schindler added, “By receiving him, you will be, even if you do not want to, propagating the hatred that this man exudes,” the AP reported.
Local politicians have also lined up against Waters. Center-right Uruguayan lawmaker Felipe Schipani, for one, called on the Motevideo town government to rescind its declaration of Distinguished Visitor bestowed onto Waters in 2018. And several local Montevideo City council members also called for the city to revoke its Oct. 30 declaration that Waters’ show is “of cultural interest.”
Even as Waters explains away his criticism of Jews as only criticism of the Israeli state — which he calls a “fascist” government — his own former bandmates aren’t so sure. Former Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour has been reported as saying that Waters is an anti-Semite and a supporter of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
In a social media post from February, Gilmour called accusations that Waters is an anti-Semite “demonstrably true.”
Every word demonstrably true https://t.co/KWk4I3bMTN
— David Gilmour (@davidgilmour) February 6, 2023
The criticism Waters has faced has been steadily growing over the last few years. One wonders: Is he finally being faced with a brutal wake-up call over his hate for Israel?
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