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| Roger Waters (left) Stern (right) |
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 bullsh_t. 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 sh_t 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."
