Pink Floyd rocker Roger Waters is taking credit for Stevie Wonder?s decision to pull out of a Friends of the IDF gala.

Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters took partial credit for Stevie Wonder’s decision to pull out of performing at a Friends of Israel Defense Forces event.

In an interview with Electronic Intifada, a pro-Palestinian media outlet, Floyd said he was one of several dignitaries who wrote to Wonder in an effort to dissuade him from playing at the Los Angeles gala in December.

“I wrote a letter to him saying that this would be like playing a police ball in Johannesburg the day after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960,” he said. “It wouldn’t be a great thing to do, particularly as he was meant to be a U.N. ambassador for peace.”

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

He said South African leader Bishop Desmund Tutu also sent Wonder a similar message.

During the interview, Waters compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians with the treatment of blacks in South Africa under the apartheid regime and argued sanctions against the Jewish state were the most “effective way to go.” Waters has endorsed the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.

“I think that the kind of boycott that was implemented against the apartheid regime in South Africa back in the day is probably the most effective way to go because the situation is that the Israeli government runs an apartheid regime in Israel, the occupied territories and everywhere else it decides,” Waters said. “Let us not forget that they laid waste most of Lebanon around the time I started getting involved in this issue. They destroyed airports, hospitals, any public buildings they could.”

Waters, the creative force behind the progressive rock band, complained that the media in the U.S. had intentionally ignored covering his protests against Israel in recent years, speculating it was “under instructions from somewhere not to report these things to the American public, on what grounds I cannot guess.”

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount