Musician Alan Parsons gave his former colleague Roger Waters a sharp slap in the face this week over BDS, letting Waters know that he will share his music with anyone who wants to hear it.
In the process, Parsons drew attention to the immoral nature of the BDS, which is bent on punishing the people of Israel, not the government whose policies Waters claims it opposes.
Waters, whose passion for BDS borders on religious extremism, has personally intervened numerous times when artists such as Neil Young have scheduled performances in Israel. Last week, he published a letter on his Facebook page urging Parsons to cancel his Feb. 10 concert in Tel Aviv:
I know you to be a talented and thoughtful man, so I assume you know of the plight of the Palestinians and that there is a growing nonviolent Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement protesting against the abusive policies of the Israeli government.
Parsons’ reply, however, cut to the heart of what’s wrong with BDS:
This is a political matter and I am simply an artist. I create music, that is my raison d’être. Everyone – no matter where they reside, what religion they follow, or what ideology they aspire to – deserves to hear it if they so choose.
Music knows no borders, and neither do I.
[sc:graybox ]Join the Fighting BDS Facebook page and stand up against the assault on Israel’s legitimacy.
In other words, canceling the concert would harm the people who want to hear the music, not the government. And that is what’s wrong with BDS and its cultural boycott. It’s a form of collective punishment and discrimination on the basis of national origin.
And it certainly doesn’t help the credibility of the movement when people like Waters, who has denounced collective punishment of the Palestinians in Gaza (calling it “an open-air prison” in 2012) actively campaign for collective punishment of Israelis.
In fact, Waters acknowledged in his letter to Parsons that the real goal of BDS was to send a “powerful message” to the people. “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,” he wrote.
So while Roger Waters and the BDS movement claim they are simply protesting the policies of the Israeli government, they are willingly, openly, and immorally directing their attack on the people of Israel.
And Alan Parsons was having none of it, both by holding firm in his resolve to perform for his audience and by showing that politics and art do not mix.
Hopefully, the added publicity Roger Waters generated helped Parsons reach even more people.
