Howard Stern shared strong words for former Pink Floyd member Roger
Waters on a recent broadcast of his show, blasting the singer-songwriter
Tuesday over his stance on Israel.
For years, the singer-songwriter has supported the Boycott, Divestment
and Sanctions movement, supporting Palestine and urging his rock-star peers not
to perform in Israel. “What is with Roger Waters and the Jews?” Stern
said in a seven-minute rant on his show, via The Washington Free Beacon.
“Why does Roger Waters live in America, a country that was founded on
white people coming in and obliterating the native population? How does he
stand it? Why don’t we just all leave?”
Most recently, Waters published an open letter to Bon Jovi, saying that
the singer was “shoulder to shoulder with the settler who burned the
baby.” The statement irked Stern, who went on to describe how he sees
Israel and its place in the Middle East.
“Where’s the one place
they can stick Jews where no one will be offended? Because the Jews are getting
killed all over the world,” Stern said. “Give them a little homeland
on a desert where there’s no water, where essentially no one could live. And no
one did live there despite the bullshit. And the Palestinians are these Arabs
that could live in Egypt, that could live in Saudi Arabia, but guess what?
Those countries don’t want them either. So they have a country, and Israel has
a tiny little country and it bugs the shit out of Roger Waters.”
Stern went on to say that he knows Waters and that the singer-songwriter
had recently gone up to him and said, “Thanks a lot,” in a sarcastic
tone. “I guess he’s offended by me pointing this out,” the radio host
said. “Why can’t I talk? Why can’t I tell you I think you’re full of shit,
and it seems like you’re a little too consumed with it?”
A representative for Waters declined to comment.
In August, Waters told Israeli newspaper Haaretz that it’s not Israel he
hates, but what he considers apartheid there. “People are always saying,
‘BDS is trying to delegitimize Israel,'” he said. “No, it’s not. It’s
trying to stop the oppression of the Palestinian, Bedouin and other Arab
peoples of the region you are oppressing. It’s trying to stop you oppressing
your fellow human beings. It’s not trying to delegitimize Israel.”
