Roger Waters Defamed Filmmaker With Antisemitic Remarks, Court Finds
A London high court has found that statements from Pink Floyd cofounder Roger Waters accusing a documentary filmmaker of “cheerleading the genocide of Palestinians” and acting as a “Zionist mouthpiece” during an Al Jazeera interview are defamatory.
Justice Jennifer Eady on Tuesday concluded that Waters was making a statement of fact, blocking him from arguing that the assertions were intended to be opinions. The ruling deciding preliminary issues in the case advances the lawsuit toward trial. “The statements are defamatory of the claimant at common law,” she wrote.
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Waters was sued last year by John Ware, who produced the documentary The Dark Side of Roger Waters, over comments he made on Al Jazeera’s The Stream. The documentary explored allegations of antisemitism surrounding Waters. It features interviews from figures across his career, including Norbert Stachel, Waters’ former saxophone player, and Bob Ezrin, the producer of Pink Floyd’s The Wall. In a post on his website, Waters said that the documentary “indiscriminately mixes things I’m alleged to have said or done at different times and in different contexts, in an effort to portray me as an antisemite, without any foundation in fact.”
In a statement, the Campaign Against Antisemitism, which created the documentary, said, “Those who claim that someone alleging antisemitism is just a ‘cheerleader for genocide’ are just spouting a modernised version of the trope that those who allege antisemitism are merely trying to silence criticism of Israel.”
In Tuesday’s ruling, the court rejected arguments from Waters that his statements were meant to be opinions on the conduct of Israeli forces in Gaza, among other things.
“Although I would accept that the first defendant’s reference to a ‘genocide’ expressed his opinion as to what was happening as a result of the actions of Israeli forces in Gaza (to which he had already referred), in stating that the claimant positively supported that ‘genocide,’ I find he was making a statement of fact,” Eady wrote.
In 2023, Waters was put under investigation by German authorities for wearing a black leather trench coat adorned with a red armband displaying two crossed hammers during a performance in Berlin. He’s denied allegations of antisemitism across his career.
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