Waters Joins in Protest Song on Trump’s Jerusalem Recognition
Pink Floyd co-founder says verses from Mahmoud Darwish, the Palestinians’ national poet, relevant to ‘all victims of settler colonialism everywhere’
Ex-Pink Floyd musician Roger Waters as he appears on ‘Supremacy,’ a reading of a Mahmoud Darwish poem with the music of a Palestinian oud trio in the background, to protest US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. (Facebook screenshot)SOURCE: THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
BY: AFP AND TOI STAFF
Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters joined a trio of Arab Israeli artists for a new song billed as a response to the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
To the sound of the oud lutes of Le Trio Joubran, based in Nazareth in northern Israel, Waters recites verse from Mahmoud Darwish, considered the poet laureate of the Palestinians.
Darwish’s poem, “The Red Indian’s Penultimate Speech to the White Man,” comes from the voice of a Native American mourning settlements that will permanently alter the land, but Waters uses it as a metaphor for the fate of the Palestinians living under Israeli control.
“Where, oh white master, are you taking my people — and yours?” the British rocker recites in the English translation over the lutes and an ambient backdrop.
Waters, best known as a former member of Pink Floyd who conceived the rock opera “The Wall,” has long been a passionate supporter of the Palestinian cause and has angered Israelis by leading calls for a cultural boycott.
In 2013, the Anti-Defamation League, having previously defended Waters against charges of anti-Semitism, acknowledged that “anti-Semitic conspiracy theories” have “seeped into the totality” of the performer’s views.
Watch the video here
Waters wrote on his Facebook page, “On the surface it narrates the last speech of The Native American to The White Man, but it speaks also to Darwish’s beloved Palestine, and its indigenous people, in fact to all victims of settler colonialism everywhere, always.”
Bassist and vocalist Waters is known for publicly harassing artists scheduled to visit Israel or perform there.
Trump broke international precedent by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and ordering the US embassy’s move from Tel Aviv to the holy city.
Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War and sees the entire city as its capital. The Palestinians seek East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
Washington plans to open its embassy in Jerusalem to mark Israel’s 70th birthday in May, delighting the Jewish state but enraging Palestinians who mark Israel’s creation as Naqba, or their “day of catastrophe.”
