ZOA President Morton Klein and Chair Mark Levenson and ZOA regional director Steve Feldman released the following statement:

The Zionist Organization of America is horrified that Major League Baseball, known as “America’s Pastime,” would promote Roger Waters, one of the world’s most vicious and vile Jew-haters and Israel-haters,especially in an era when attacks against American Jews have become an epidemic.

We call on Major League Baseball to immediately sever its ties to Roger Waters, cease promoting his upcoming concert tour and repudiate Waters’ vile lies about Jews and about the Jewish state of Israel which incite Jew-hatred. MLB’s promotion of Waters give Waters’ Jew-hatred its stamp of approval and legitimizes Israelophobia. 

In 2017 the Zionist Organization of America condemned Waters, calling him an “unabashed anti-Semitic bigot.”

Waters is a leading advocate of the notoriously racist Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS) and frequently attacks the Jewish state with false accusations of human rights violations while ignoring actual human rights violations throughout the world. 

Major League Baseball (MLB) emailed to baseball fans an advertisement featuring its logo and the logo of Waters’ upcoming tour to promote the Waters’ concerts. The email offered MLB fans an opportunity to purchase concert tickets early – before they go on sale to the general public.

Waters is obsessed with Israel and has a long record of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish activity:

• Waters aggressively and relentlessly hounds musicians planning to perform in Israel and attempts to bully them into cancelling their Israel performances. 
• Waters narrated an anti-Israel, anti-Jewish pseudo-documentary that, among other things claims undue influence by pro-Israel groups on U.S. public opinion and policy; he did a live Facebook chat with BDS founder Omar Barghouti, and in media appearances worldwide bludgeons Israel – distorting or completely lying about historical facts and contemporary situations.
• Waters told his Facebook audience: “I’m not sure that there are any regimes harsher than [Israel’s].”
• On the Canadian TV show “Tout Le Monde en Parle” Waters lied you the host saying: “In 1947, when the State of Israel was created, it was created against a background that it was suggested by the United Nations in resolution 191[sic] that two states should be created. … and there have been no serious moves made to allow them [the “Palestinians”] to have a state.” He claimed further: Palestinian-Arabs live under martial law,” and “none of them have any rights at all.”
• During a New York Times live event, Waters endorsed the so-called “Palestinian” ”right of return” which would facilitate the influx of millions of Arabs into Israel who claim to be refugees – an action experts across the political spectrum agree would mean the destruction of Israel.
• A Facebook page promoting a screening of the film Waters narrated claims “the Israeli government, the U.S. government, and the pro-Israel lobby have joined forces, often with very different motives, to shape American media coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict in Israel’s favor.”
• During a concert in 2016, Waters praised BDS activists on campuses – the same BDS activists who threaten and harass Jewish students and sponsor speakers who demonize Jews, creating an environment of fear and hostility.
• His tour seven years ago featured a giant inflatable pig marked with a Star of David and dollar signs that hovered over the audience.
• In 2019 Waters told a German publication: “[M]any Zionist organizations and powerful political financial backers like Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban exert an enormous influence over US government’s policy on Israel.”

The ZOA is not alone in criticizing and condemning Waters for his bias and Jew-hatred.

• The Simon Wiesenthal Center has called Waters “an open hater of Jews.”
• The Greater Miami Jewish Federation placed on ad on the Miami Herald homepage telling Waters: “Anti-Semitism and hatred are not welcome in Miami.” It noted in a statement Waters’ “obsessive fixation on Israel betrays a bigotry that goes far beyond criticism of a nation’s policies.”
• The Jewish Federation of Nashville and Middle Tennessee has written about Waters on its website: “Though he denies it, Roger Waters (of Pink Floyd) makes no effort to hide his anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. He says he’s not anti-Israel or biased against Jews, yet the imagery and props he often uses tell a different story – like a huge, inflatable pig he hangs off the rafters with stars of David and dollar signs.
• Chicago’s Jewish Community Relations Council stated that Waters is “repeatedly espousing anti-Israel rhetoric that often crosses the line from legitimate criticism of Israeli policies into anti-Semitism.”
• B’nai B’rith International: “Waters is an avowed anti-Semite whose views on Jews and Israel far exceed the boundaries of civil discourse.”

ZOA demands that Major League Baseball stop promoting Jew hatred and evil Israel bashing by MLB’s unconscionable promotion of Jew hater Israelophobe Roger Waters and his group Pink Floyd.