The musician and activist slammed campaign by the pro-Israel activist group B’nai B’rith to smear him as an anti-Semite and have him removed from the South by Southwest (SXSW) music festival in Austin, Texas, where he is scheduled to give the keynote speech to an audience of hundreds of thousands of people.

In an interview with RT, Waters explained that spurious antisemitism accusations are part of a deliberate and massive campaign to distract from Israeli human rights abuses.

“It muddies the waters over one very specific issue, which is the issue of the settler-colonial occupation of the land of Palestine by Israeli armed forces…human rights should be something that is fundamental, that applies to all people equally,” Waters said. “Clearly the Israel-Palestine issue is a glaring example of somewhere where some people have rights and some people don’t.”

The reason [antisemitism accusations are] brought up so often is so that we will not address the fundamental issue of whether what I say is true or not.

Waters also referred to the sinister effort by “nebulous NGO” the International Holocaust Remembrance Association to actually redefine the word “antisemitism,” expanding the meaning of the word to include “any criticism of the policies both domestic and foreign of the state of Israel as being inherently antisemitic.”

While the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement Waters supports has falsely been equated with antisemitism by the deep-pocketed Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs, a government agency devoted specifically to neutralizing the movement, he explained that BDS has “consistently, constantly and unequivocally stated that it is against all forms of ‘isms’” - including, but not limited to, antisemitism.

Speaking to his critics in the Israel lobby, Waters admonished them for hiding behind the Jewish people, not all of whom support the policies of Tel Aviv.

“You need to come up with a defense for your side of the argument - for whether it is correct or not for the Israeli government to be operating a system of apartheid in the country that used to be called Palestine.”

We need to be able to look at these things without slinging mud and calling people names that don’t fit.

B’nai B’rith complained last month when Major League Baseball aired ads for Waters’ upcoming tour, complaining the rock legend was an “avowed antisemite” whose statements about Israel “far exceed the boundaries of civil discourse.”

The group’s complaint to SXSW was similarly-worded, declaring it “unconscionable” that he should “be given any platform to air his antisemitic views.”

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