Roger Waters claims 'Israeli lobby' blocking Uruguay, Argentina hotel stays / Photo: © AFP/File
Roger Waters claims 'Israeli lobby' blocking Uruguay, Argentina hotel stays
Singer Roger Waters, who has been repeatedly accused of anti-Semitism, claimed in an interview published Wednesday to be the victim of a hotel boycott in Uruguay and Argentina led by "the Israeli lobby."
The former Pink Floyd cofounder and frontman, just off several concerts in Brazil as part of his "This Is Not a Drill" tour, is scheduled to perform in Montevideo on Friday, followed by Buenos Aires next Tuesday and Wednesday.
But the British-born performer told Argentina's Pagina 12 newspaper he has no choice but to stay in lodgings in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
"Somehow these idiots of the Israeli lobby managed to co-opt all the hotels in Buenos Aires and Montevideo and organized this extraordinary boycott based on the malicious lies... about me," Pagina 12 quoted him as saying in an article published in Spanish.
Approached by AFP, hotels in Montevideo declined to comment.
The presidents of Uruguay's central Israelite Committee, Roby Schindler, and of the Jewish NGO B'Nai B'Rith, Franklin Rosenfeld, accused Rogers this week of being a "propagator" of Jewish hatred, in letters addressed to the Sofitel hotel in the Uruguayan capital and disseminated on social media.
Schindler called Waters a "misogynist, xenophobe and anti-Semitic" while Rosenfeld threatened an anti-Sofitel campaign if the hotel hosted the "anti-Semitic artist."
Waters told Pagina 12 that "I have not had a single anti-Semitic thought in my entire life" insisting his criticism was of the Israeli government's actions.
Waters, one of the highest-grossing touring artists of all time, has long criticized Israel, urging a cultural boycott and flying an inflatable pig emblazoned with the Star of David at his concerts.
The rocker, born in Britain and a longtime New York resident, recently also appeared to cast doubt in an interview on the veracity of Israel's statements about the October 7 attack by Islamist group Hamas.
That attack, the worst in Israel's history, killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, with Hamas taking about 240 hostages back into Gaza, according to Israeli officials.
In Gaza, more than 11,300 people, also mostly civilians, have been killed in an intense Israeli bombing campaign and ground invasion in response, health officials in the Hamas-run territory have said.
The United States and European Union have criticized Waters' anti-Israel statements.
Waters, 80, also has performances scheduled in Chile, Peru, Costa Rica, Colombia and Ecuador in the coming weeks.
C.Aguilar--ESF
