Roger Waters asks fellow musicians to boycott Israel

Pink Flyod's frontman, Roger Waters, has written an impassioned and hard-hitting open letter to fellow Rock and Roll musicians.

Waters has invited and called-on his peers to join the boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel campaign.

In a letter issued from Warsaw, Poland earlier this morning, Waters writes: "To cut to the chase, Israel has been found guilty - independently - by international human rights organisations, UN officials, and the International Court of Justice, of serious breaches of international law.

“These include, and I will name only two "the Crime of Apartheid" [and] the Crime of Ethnic Cleansing...[I]t falls to civil society and conscientious citizens of the world, to dust off our consciences, shoulder our responsibilities, and act. I write to you now, my brothers and sisters in the family of Rock and Roll, to ask you to join with me, and thousands of other artists around the world, to declare a cultural boycott on Israel."

Waters explains that there are two recent events that have prompted his letter, one of which was the December 2012 cancellation by Stevie Wonder of a headline performance at a benefit dinner for the Israeli Defence Force.

Waters adds that he, together with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, "wrote to Stevie [Wonder] to try to persuade him to cancel. My letter ran along these lines, 'Would you have felt OK performing at the Policeman's Ball in Johannesburg the night after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960?'"

He also challenges mainstream media and specifically criticises the US media, stating that: "The clear inference would be that the media in the USA is not interested in the predicament of the Palestinian people, or for that matter the predicament of the Israeli people.

“We can only hope they may become interested as they eventually did in the politics of apartheid South Africa.”

He makes reference to the former apartheid regime in South Africa, the 1980s international boycott of South Africa movement and specific mention of the African National Congress' recent Mangaung boycott of Israel resolution:

"Back in the days of apartheid South Africa, at first it was a trickle of artists that refused to play there.. then it became a stream, then a river then a torrent and then a flood. (Remember Steve van Zant, Bruce and all the others? "We will not Play in Sun City?")...

“The sports community joined the battle, no one would go and play cricket or rugby in South Africa, and eventually the political community joined in as well. We all as a global, musical, sporting and political community raised our voices as one and the apartheid regime in South Africa fell...

“Maybe we are at the tipping point now with Israel and Palestine. These are good people both and they deserve a just solution to their predicament. Each and every one of them deserves freedom, justice and equal rights.

Waters asked his fellow artists to support by pledging not to perform or exhibit in Israel or accept any award or funding from any institution linked to the government of Israel, “until such time as Israel complies with international law and universal principles of human rights”.