Disturbed frontman David Draiman has labelled Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters a “Nazi” for the role he has played in encouraging a boycott of Israel by a number of performing artists.
If you have paid much attention to the world of music and politics over the last few years, you would undoubtedly know that Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters is not a fan of artists performing in Israel.
In fact, while artists such as Lana Del Rey, Lorde, Madonna, and Radiohead have all been urged to boycott Israel, Waters’ comments have been so vitriolic at times that a 2017 petition labelled the rocker an antisemite for his previous outspoken efforts.
However, while Nick Cave has attacked such boycotts, one other artist that is fed up with Roger Waters’ actions of urging artists to boycott Israel is David Draiman of Disturbed, a Jewish musician who has not only spent copious amounts of time in Israel, but is the descendent of Holocaust survivors.
In a recent interview with the ‘Bring Disturbed To Israel’ Facebook page ahead of their debut in the country next month, Draiman spoke out against those who have attempted to cause more divide by encouraging boycotts.
“I’m a very, very strong supporter of Israel forever and for our people,” Draiman began. “And regardless of whether it’s Israel or anywhere else, boycotting an entire society and an entire people based on the actions of its government is absolutely ridiculous. And it doesn’t accomplish anything.
“I don’t see boycotts happening of Russia; I don’t see boycotts happening of many of some of the countries that have some of the most oppressive, closed-off regimes in existence on the face of the planet, where LGBTQ people are persecuted, where all kinds of minorities are persecuted. I don’t see people boycotting China for what they’re doing to their Muslim population.
“It’s just Israel that gets this treatment, and I think we all know the reason behind that.”
Check out David Draiman’s comments on Israel:
“There’s a special hatred that exists for the Jewish people in this world, and it unfortunately can’t be explained,” David Draiman continued. “It’s something that has lasted and has been deep seated for centuries, and that’s part of our burden as a people, unfortunately.
“You can’t accomplish anything in terms of trying to create peace, in terms of trying to create understanding by shutting things off. There has to be open roads of communication. You build bridges; you don’t knock them down. And music and entertainment is the perfect way to bridge that gap.
“And the very notion that [Roger] Waters and the rest of his Nazi comrades decide that this is the way to go ahead and foster change is absolute lunacy and idiocy — absolute. It makes no sense whatsoever. It’s only based on hatred of a culture and of a people and of a society that have been demonised unjustifiably since the beginning of time.
“You wanna be able to bring people together? You wanna effect social change on a real level? Bring them together for a concert,” Draiman concluded. “It’s the perfect way. Music builds bridges, and the fact that anybody would try to dissuade artists from trying to do what their music was created to do in the first place is mind-boggling to me.
“And the fact that any artist would actually fall prey to this rhetoric and this way of thinking is mind-blowing to me. That they’re cutting off their noses to spite their faces just is completely the antithesis of what creating art is meant to do.”
Roger Waters has not responded to the comments of David Draiman at the present time, and it appears as though Disturbed will not be moved by any attempts by the veteran rocker to urge them to boycott Israel.
Check out ‘A Reason To Fight’ by Disturbed:
