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Israeli Singer Dudu Tassa Blasts Roger Waters for Criticizing Artists Who Perform in Israel
Former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters on stage. Photo: Reuters/Amr Alfiky
Israeli singer-songwriter Dudu Tassa took to Instagram on Monday to criticize former Pink Floyd frontman and anti-Israel musician Roger Waters for “obsessing” over artists who choose not to support a cultural boycott of Israel.
Tassa directly addressed Waters in an Instagram post, writing, “Dear Roger, Are you not tired of obsessing over the same musicians who are simply trying to bring good into the world? Move on. Your incredible music has already contributed and inspired an entire generation. Now, all the noise achieves nothing. Music is what matters. Got it?”
Tassa’s post was in response to comments Waters recently made about Radiohead lead singer Thom Yorke and the British rock band’s guitarist Jonny Greenwood, regarding their stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the band’s refusal to cancel shows in Israel. Waters is an avid supporter of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, which constantly urges musicians not to perform in the Jewish state.
Radiohead has been performing in Israel for over 20 years, most recently in 2017, and Greenwood and Tassa have been collaborating and releasing music together since 2008. The Radiohead guitarist, who is married to an Israeli, released a collaborative album with Tassa last year titled “Jarak Qaribak,” which is an Arabic phrase that means “Your Neighbor Is Your Friend.” The album features vocalists and musicians from across the Middle East, including Cairo, Ramallah, and Beirut. Greenwood and Tassa performed together in Tel Aviv this summer, despite pressure that Greenwood faced from BDS supporters to cancel his shows. Radiohead was also threatened by BDS activists because of Greenwood’s concerts in Israel.
Waters made a recent guest appearance on “The Empire Files” podcast and talked about exchanging emails with Yorke regarding Radiohead’s decision to perform in Israel in 2017. Waters also commented on Yorke’s confrontation with an anti-Israel fan during one of his concerts in Melbourne, Australia, in October. The former Pink Floyd lead singer called Yorke “a complete prick” and said, “I think he’s damaged.”
“He’s very damaged,” Waters added. “He’s obviously very, very deeply insecure. He obviously thinks he’s very bright but he’s not. So he can’t actually have a conversation.”
Waters then criticized Greenwood for releasing music with Tassa this summer and performing in Israel.
“There is no argument to be made. There is the oppressed and the oppressor,” Waters said. “The oppressed are the indigenous people of Palestine, the oppressor are the settler-colonial visitors from North America and North Europe. The oppressors are murdering all the oppressed people so they can steal their furniture, and their houses, and their olive trees, and their hills, and their streams, and their water, and their land, and their birthright. There is nothing difficult to understand. It is not a conflict. It is a ge-no-cide, Thom and Jonny, and you are supporting it.”
Waters afterwards went on an anti-Israel rampage, calling for a boycott of Israel on all cultural levels, including in sports.
“We must ban Israel from all international soccer, at club level and international level. We must band them from Eurovision. They should never have been in Eurovision anyway,” he claimed. “Israel has to be banned. It is a rogue state and it is a murderous genocidal rogue state. This is nothing against Jews. I have nothing against Judaism, nothing against Jewish people. I’m talking about the genocidal rogue state of Israel.”
Waters has previously come under fire for his use of antisemitic and Holocaust-related imagery and content in past concerts, such as a balloon shaped like a pig and that was embossed with a Star of David. Last year, an explosive documentary showed fellow musicians detailing Waters’ long record of anti-Jewish barbs. In one instance, a former colleague recalled Waters at a restaurant yelling at the wait staff to “take away the Jew food.”
Greenwood previously released a statement defending his decision to perform in Israel this summer and release new music with Tassa. “I think an artistic project that combines Arab and Jewish musicians is worthwhile,” wrote the British musician. “And one that reminds everyone that the Jewish cultural roots in countries like Iraq and Yemen go back for thousands of years, is also important.”
“The silencing of Israeli film makers / musicians / dancers when their work tours abroad — especially when it’s at the urging of their fellow Western film makers/musicians/artists — feels unprogressive to me,” he added in part. “No art is as ‘important’ as stopping all the death and suffering around us. How can it be? But doing nothing seems a worse option. And silencing Israeli artists for being born Jewish in Israel doesn’t seem like any way to reach an understanding between the two sides of this apparently endless conflict.”
Waters called Greenwood’s explanation “complete bulls—t” during his appearance on “The Empire Files” podcast.
In 2017, Waters signed an open letter urging Radiohead not to perform in Israel. The letter, also signed by other musicians and British director Ken Loach, accused Israel of imposing “a system of apartheid on the Palestinian people.” Radiohead ignored the letter and still performed in Israel.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
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