Roger Waters’ The Wall Live was Billboard’s top tour of 2012, but he’s created his own wall within certain factions of the music industry for his recent comments about the Israeli-Palestine conflict. In a Dec. 6 interview with progressive political blog Counterpunch, Waters refers to a “systematic racist apartheid Israeli regime” as the basis of his cultural boycott for playing gigs in the country, likening the Israeli government to the Nazis at one point and citing unnamed artists as being “afraid” of playing the region over safety concerns. Razor & Tie co-founder Craig Balsam criticized Waters’ beliefs in a column for the New York Post, dismissing Waters’ views as “inaccurate, bigoted and malicious.” Balsam notes that acts ranging from Paul McCartney to Alicia Keys have all played the region in recent months, and describes Israel as “the only country [in the Middle East] that recognizes women’s rights, gay rights and equal rights for all minorities including Arabs and Christians.”
Other industry luminaries are speaking out, too. “I consider Roger a very nice man. I’ve spent some time with him through the passion of golf, but the fact that he’s saying some absurd things and thinking no one’s going to check him is not very thoughtful,” says 300 Entertainment co-founder Lyor Cohen. “We’ve had enough time together for him to know I’m an Israeli that cares deeply about the region, and knows very clearly my Jewishness. The next time we see each other, I’m not going to let him get away with saying dumb things and not address it.”
Spirit Music chairman David Renzer is co-founder of pro-Israeli industry consortium Creative Community for Peace, which has attempted to start a dialogue with Waters and his team. (Manager Mark Fenwick didn’t reply to Billboard’s request for comment.) “The issue isn’t so much Roger Waters,” says Renzer. “Let’s have an atmosphere in which we can have a dialogue.”