Rocker calls former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir “a lying piece of sh*t” over a Zionist slogan.
By Pesach Benson, United with Israel
Jewish groups criticized rock star and serial Israel-basher Roger Waters who called former prime minister Golda Meir “a lying piece of sh*t” while talking to students at Montreal’s McGill University.
The former Pink Floyd frontman was giving a webinar as part of the “Standing Up for Student Solidarity with Palestine” forum in mid-July. The webinar was organized by a number of pro-Palestinian campus groups.
“At the turn of the millennium, I had no idea really what was going on,” said Waters. “I thought, Israel isn’t that people in sandals going around and you know farming, and aren’t they Socialists. … I was completely wrong. It’s not about that at all.
“It’s about a bunch of, you know, Europeans back in the middle of the 19th century deciding that they were going to take over this piece of land, and kick out anybody that lived there and take it over for themselves and for their own little cabal,” he alleged.
Waters also called Golda Meir, Israel’s former prime minister in the 1970s, a “lying piece of sh*t,” associating her with a Zionist slogan, “A land without a people for a people without a land.”
The rocker took some shots at B’nai Brith Canada, saying he remembered those “a**holes from the last time I was in Canada,” and “they would be trying to get people to not come to my shows and to join them in the belief that I am an anti-Semite. … I pity them now because they are clinging to the last shreds of any attachment to their fascist belief in Jewish supremacy in the Holy Land, and it is fascist.”
Leaving no doubt about his feelings for the Canadian advocacy organization, Waters added, “The platform upon which B’nai Brith and the settler-colonialist Zionist movement and obviously the government stand … has diminished until it’s almost disappeared … and it’s going to disappear, and it will no longer be there in spite despite rich donors to McGill University putting pressure on the administration to overturn the democratic vote of students.”
Waters insisted, “There is nothing you can say about the Zionist project that is defensible. It is all based on absolute lies.”
In response, Eta Yudin, Vice President of the Quebec branch of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs said, “The organizers need to take a hard look at the message they’re sending. Instead of sending a message of division, they should aim to bring together Jews and Arabs living in Israel.”
“It’s the students on campus who are stuck facing the consequences when groups like these choose the path of hate and division. They tell us about the real toll this polarization takes on their mental health and well-being. Anti-Semitism and intolerance have no place on campus.”
B’nai Brith Canada CEO Michael Mostyn took Waters in stride, saying, “This isn’t the first time he has chosen to speak about our organization in public, and we’re appreciative that he feels the need to talk and think about B’nai Brith Canada and our concerns as much as he does.”
The Boycott Divestment and Sanctions campaign has been making in-roads at McGill but recently suffered an embarrassing setback.
In March, students passed a referendum committing the Students’ Society at McGill University (SSMU) to boycott all entities allegedly “complicit” in “Israeli apartheid.”
However, fewer than 10 percent of the student body voted and the SSMU refused to ratify the policy. The SSMU also said the boycott violated the university’s policies.
Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights, the campus organization behind the referendum, was subsequently suspended after posting a poorly worded article on social media mocking the SSMU.