Howard Stern, Roger Waters Feud Heats Up
Howard Stern claims that Roger Waters’ obsession with the state of Israel seems like anti-Semitism after the Pink Floyd frontman called the shock jock an “a*****e” in a Rolling Stone interview.
Roger Waters, 72, is an aggressive and vocal advocate of the Boycott Divestment Sanction (BDS) movement on the left to isolate Israel in terms of commerce and, in Waters’ particular case, to convince musicians to avoid playing there, which some — including Howard Stern — might construe as hatred for the Jewish people.
Last month on his Sirius/XM radio show, Stern got serious and blasted 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 Bon Jovi concert went forward 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 in an extensive rant that alluded to the Holocaust. “Where do you want the Jews to go, Roger?… You want them to just go back to the concentration camp?”
Stern subsequently insisted that many in the entertainment community share his support for Israel, but are afraid to come forward because of political correctness. Stern is receiving support on social media, however, from Big Bang Theory actress Mayim Bialik (see tweet below).
In a recent broadcast on his radio show, the former America’s Got Talent judge responded to Waters referring to him as “that a**hole,” according to an account of the monologue published by Rolling Stone.
“I’m not the only a**hole. I’m just the only a**hole brave enough to take him on. For some reason, it’s become very important to Roger to tell artists where to perform. There’s so many countries with histories of abuse and slavery, but he’s very focused on Israel. To me, he comes off like an anti-Semite.”
Waters claims that he is not anti-Semitic and that his anti-Israel activism is unrelated to religion.
Stern went on to allude, however, to the corruption in the Palestinian-administered areas as well as that many of the neighboring Arab countries — which dwarf Israel in terms of land mass — have treated Palestinians as second-class citizens, or non-citizens, rather than granting them full rights, which is the norm for refugees throughout human history.
“Defending Israel isn’t fashionable, I know. It is a tremendous distraction for Arab leaders to say, ‘Let’s get the Jews, let’s get Israel, it’s all their fault.’ As long as their poor people are focused on Israel they don’t wake up and realize who is stealing their money. Their lives aren’t getting any better from all this crap, so don’t be fooled by Roger and his statements.”
Stern added that he is harboring no hostility for Waters while chiding him for still “touring on the same 30-year-old album,” which presumably is a reference to the iconic The Wall album.
“I’m not going to call him an a**hole,” Stern concluded about his neighbor in the wealthy Hamptons enclave in New York. “It’s what he believes. I just think he’s wrong.”
“In 1922, the League of Nations granted Britain a mandate over Palestine which included, among other things, provisions calling for the establishment of a Jewish homeland, facilitating Jewish immigration and encouraging Jewish settlement on the land…On November 29, 1947, after much debate and discussion, the UN recommended the partition of Palestine into two states one Jewish and one Arab. The Jews accepted the UN resolution while the Arabs rejected it,” ADL.org explained.
Although every country, including Israel, has flaws, Israel is the only functioning multicultural, multi-faith democracy in the Middle East.
In recent weeks, the Jewish state has been dealing with a wave of knife attacks perpetrated by Palestinians against Israeli citizens, such as this incident depicted in the clip below in which a woman stabbed a security guard.
“The officer was able to dodge the full force of the stabbing and only suffered a minor wound, he said. He then shot the woman and ‘neutralized her,’ he said. [The woman] was taken to a hospital in Jerusalem, where she’s listed in serious condition. An emergency dispatcher believed the knife-wielding woman was planning to sneak into a bus stop in the city, where she would have attacked passengers.The security guard said he was lucky to have survived the attack on his 33rd birthday. ‘I feel like I was given my life today as a gift,’ he said,” according to a report in the New York Daily News.
In July 2014 during the Gaza hostilities, Howard Stern declared that “If you’re anti-Israel, then you’re anti-America.”
[Photo by Jeff Shear/Getty Images]
https://t.co/9mQFRSBRNB @HowardStern… lets discuss our shared unfashionable views on israel. Name a time. Much respect.
— Mayim Bialik (@missmayim) November 8, 2015
