Howard Stern Doubles Down On Support For Israel, Tells Other Celebrities To Do The Same

Howard Stern reaffirmed his strong support for the state of Israel after his Roger Waters rant created a lot of media buzz.

He also claimed that many in the entertainment community agree with him, but are afraid to come forward apparently because of political correctness.

Listen to the embedded audio (NSFW for language) below.

Last week on his Sirius/XM radio show, Stern got serious and blasted former Pink Floyd frontman Waters for publishing an open letter in Salon unsuccessfully trying to discourage the Bon Jovi band from performing for the first time in the Jewish homeland because of that country’s alleged apartheid polices. The concert went forward on Saturday night in Tel Aviv as planned, however.

“He’s got to shut up, Roger Waters. What is with Roger Waters and the Jews?,” Howard Stern wondered at the time.

Roger Waters is an aggressive advocate of a movement on the left to isolate and boycott Israel in terms of commerce and, in particular, to convince musicians to avoid playing there, which some might construe as anti-Semitism.

Stern’s original comments about Waters and Israel were met with demands for an apology by the Palestine Liberation Organization that Stern was advancing racist assumptions and anti-Arab sentiments.

In a follow-up interchange with radio co-host Robin Quivers, the self-proclaimed King of All Media revisited the subject of Roger Waters and his anti-Israel activism on his show yesterday morning. In the discourse, Stern alluded to the founding of the state of Israel following the Holocaust, in which the Nazis perpetrated genocide against the Jewish people in Europe.

“I’m a supporter of Israel, I’m a fan of Israel. I believe Israel was a necessity post World War II…it’s a place where a lot of people have hope because they had nowhere to go….Roger Waters has a problem with it, and he’s quite vocal about it…and I received many, many emails from prominent people thanking me for my comments…for sticking up for Israel…It’s odd to me that people who are prominent, businessmen, other entertainers, who feel similarly to me are very afraid to speak out for some reason. I don’t understand why.

“If you feel Israel is a friend to the United States. as I do, our only friend in the Middle East, the only ones we can actually count on if the real sh*t goes down, which it will one day. If you believe that and you believe in what I say, and I don’t care if you’re a Jew or not…but if you believe that this is a country that certainly shouldn’t get sh*t from the Roger Waters’ of this world, from Pink Floyd, then speak out. Don’t be so f*****g afraid…Don’t sit silently by when others will sit there and condemn and throw out words like apartheid…fight the power.”

The former America’s Got Talent judge also mentioned that he’s had some brief and awkward conversations with Roger Waters at parties but he still doesn’t understand Waters’ obsession with Israel while seemingly turning a blind eye to human rights violations in other nations.

Although every country, including Israel, is flawed, Israel is the only functioning multicultural democracy in the Middle East. Moreover, while the United Nations and the international community in general put Israel under a microscope, territorial disputes exist all over the world.

Jews have been continuously present in what is now known as Israel for approximately 3,000-plus years, according to the ArabIsraeliconflict.info website as well as many other sources.

With that in mind, while most of the attention by the international community centers on the disputed Palestinian territories on the West Bank controlled by Israel, Howard Stern has previously alluded to the fact that many of the neighboring Arab countries — which dwarf Israel in terms of land mass — have treated Palestinians as second-class citizens, rather than granting them full rights which is the norm for refugees throughout human history.

“The systematic refusal of Arab governments to grant basic human rights to Palestinians who are born and die in their countries — combined with periodic mass expulsions of entire Palestinian communities — recalls the treatment of Jews in medieval Europe…After 60 years of failed wars, and failed peace, it is time to put politics aside and to insist that the basic rights of the Palestinian refugees in Arab countries be respected,” The Independent of London asserted.

In a somewhat related issue, according to The Daily Beast, many Arab countries are forcibly deporting Palestinian refugees from Syria back to Syria amidst the current crisis. As the Inquisitr previously reported, wealthy Gulf nations in the Middle East have declined to resettle any Syrian refugees, most of whom have headed to Europe.

Do you agree or disagree with Howard Stern’s strong pro-Israel views?

[Photos by Dave Kotinsky, Larry Busacca, and Mike Coppola/Getty Images Entertainment]