Roger Waters. (Photo: JStone/Shutterstock)
Famous musician and anti-Israel activist Roger Waters failed to convince fellow music celebrity Alan Parsons to boycott the Jewish state.
Roger Waters, former Pink Floyd singer, songwriter and bassist as well as a vociferous supporter of the anti-Israel BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement, had tried persuading British rocker Alan Parsons to cancel his scheduled concert in Israel. Parsons, a musician who also produced several hit albums, rejected Rogers’ appeals, stating on twitter that he was “happy to be in Tel Aviv.”
“While I know you don’t want to disappoint your fans by canceling this gig, you would be sending a powerful message to them and the world by doing so,” Waters wrote Parsons on Facebook.
In a longer letter to Parsons, Waters tried to use their mutual artistic history as a way to convince him.
A BDS protest (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
“Dear Alan, it’s been 40 years since we worked on Dark Side of the Moon together…. More and more artists are standing up to say they will not perform in Israel until such time as their occupation ends and equal rights are extended to Palestinians. I ask that you consider joining me,” he wrote.
Parsons was not lured by the rhetoric. Speaking to Israelis at the Rimon musical academy on Sunday, Israel’s Ynet reports, he said that various anti-Israel organizations had asked him to boycott Israel, “but I replied that I would come here and perform because I don’t mix music and politics. I see music as a superior thing, and I will perform wherever I am invited to. I perform for people who enjoy listening to my music.”
The Alan Parsons Live Project is scheduled to rock Tel Aviv’s Nokia Arena on Tuesday, February 10.
