Turned away from hotels in Montevideo and Buenos Aires, Roger Waters accuses the “idiots of the Israeli lobby”

The British author, composer and performer Roger Waters, indicated in an interview with an Argentine newspaper that he had not been able to find accommodation in hotels in Montevideo and Buenos Aires where he had to give concerts and denounced a boycott led by " the Israeli lobby.

The former co-founder and leader of Pink Floyd, who has just given several concerts in Brazil as part of his “This Is Not a Drill” tour, is scheduled to perform in Montevideo on Friday, then in Buenos Aires next Tuesday and Wednesday. But the 80-year-old British-born artist told Argentine newspaper Pagina 12 that he had no choice but to stay in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where he performed on Saturday and Sunday, and to fly to both sides of the Rio de la Plata on the day of his concerts. “Somehow these idiots from the Israel lobby managed to co-opt all the hotels in Buenos Aires and Montevideo and organized this extraordinary boycott based on malicious lies... about me,” he told Pagina 12.

Contacted by AFP, Montevideo hotels declined to comment. The presidents of the Jewish Central Committee of Uruguay, Roby Schindler, and of the Jewish NGO B'Nai B'Rith, Franklin Rosenfeld, this week accused Roger Waters of being a "propagator" of Jewish hatred, in letters addressed at the Sofitel hotel in the Uruguayan capital and broadcast on social networks. Roby Schindler called Roger Waters a “misogynist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic,” while Franklin Rosenfeld threatened to launch an anti-Sofitel campaign if the hotel hosted the “anti-Semitic artist.”

“I have never had a single anti-Semitic thought in my entire life,” Roger Waters defended Pagina 12, stressing that his critics point to the actions of the Israeli government. Several controversies surrounded the musician engaged in the defense of human rights in 2023. He denounced the Russian invasion of Ukraine before the UN but also those who provoked it.

Or at a controversial concert in Berlin after which the US State Department castigated “anti-Semitic elements for denigrating Jews”. Mr. Waters championed “a message against fascism, injustice and bigotry in all its forms.” In recent years, the musician has also defended actions to boycott Israeli products in the name of defending the Palestinian cause.

The “This Is Not a Drill” tour, which began in July 2022 in the United States before continuing in Europe, will end on December 9 in Ecuador after final performances in Chile, Peru, Costa Rica, and Colombia.