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US State Department calls recent Roger Waters concert ‘antisemitic’
(JTA) — The U.S. State Department has condemned Roger Waters, calling the former Pink Floyd frontman’s recent concert in Berlin “antisemitic.”
A reporter asked at a press briefing on Monday whether the department agreed with recent comments from Deborah Lipstadt, the department’s envoy for combatting antisemitism, who tweeted criticism of Waters.
“The concert in question, which took place in Berlin, contained imagery that is deeply offensive to Jewish people and minimized the Holocaust,” the department wrote in a response to the question on Tuesday, the Associated Press reported. “The artist in question has a long track record of using antisemitic tropes to denigrate Jewish people.”
Waters is a leader in the call to culturally boycott Israel, often promoting the cause of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or BDS. Jewish leaders around the world have long said his harsh criticism of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians crosses the line into antisemitism.
Waters incorporates his Israel criticism and other political views into his live shows, which have in the past included a large pig-shaped balloon with images of dollar signs, the Star of David or the logo of an Israeli armaments firm. His stances have incurred blowback in the past, but on his current tour, he has enraged critics by juxtaposing the names of Holocaust victim Anne Frank and Shireen Abu Akleh, the Palestinian journalist killed in an Israeli military raid last year, on the screen at his performances.
The municipalities of Frankfurt and Munich unsuccessfully attempted to have Waters’ concerts in their cities canceled. Groups of protesters, in some cases involving local Jewish leaders and politicians, have shown up outside his concert venues. At the Frankfurt show, one protester stormed the stage with an Israeli flag.
Since last month, German police have been investigating whether a costume that Waters has worn for years at concerts, which resembles a Nazi officer’s uniform, constitutes Nazi glorification, which is outlawed in Germany.
Katharina von Schnurbein, the European Union’s antisemitism envoy, who is German, tweeted late last month that she was “sick & disgusted by Roger Waters’ obsession to belittle and trivialize the Shoah & the sarcastic way in which he delights in trampling on the victims, systematically murdered by the Nazis.” Waters has in the past compared Israel to Nazi Germany.
Lipstadt replied, writing that she “wholeheartedly” agreed with von Schnurbein’s take.
Waters had responded to the accusations about his costume, which includes a long black coat and a red armband, in a statement to social media.
“[T]he elements of my performance that have been questioned are quite clearly a statement in opposition to fascism, injustice, and bigotry in all its forms,” he wrote.
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The post US State Department calls recent Roger Waters concert ‘antisemitic’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Dublin to Rename Chaim Herzog Park in a Move Slammed as Attempt to Erase Jewish History
Anti-Israel demonstrators stand outside the Israeli embassy after Ireland has announced it will recognize a Palestinian state, in Dublin, Ireland, May 22, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Molly Darlington
i24 News – Citing the Gaza war, Dublin city council voted to rename a park honoring Israel’s sixth president, the Irish-born Chaim Herzog, in further manifestation of anti-Israel sentiment in the country.
While a new name is yet to be chosen, reports cite efforts by pro-Palestinian activists to change it to the “Free Palestine Park.”
Former Irish justice minister Alan Shatter harshly criticized the vote, charging that “Dublin City Council has now gone full on Nazi & a committee of the Council has determined it should erase Jewish/Irish history. Herzog Park in Rathgar is named after Chaim Herzog, Israel’s 6th President, brought up in Dublin by his father, Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog, a friend of Eamon De Valera, who was Chief Rabbi of Ireland & Israel’s first Chief Rabbi… Some councillors want the Park renamed ‘Free Palestine Park.”
The Jewish Representative Council of Ireland issued a statement regarding the renaming of Herzog Park.
“It sends a hurtful and isolating message to a small minority community that has contributed to Ireland for centuries. We call on Dublin City Councillors to reject this motion. The removal of the Herzog name from this park would be widely understood as an attempt to erase our Irish Jewish history.”
A virtuoso diplomat and an intellectual giant, Herzog had served in a variety of roles throughout his storied career, including a memorable stint as the ambassador to the United Nations, where in 1975 he delivered a speech condemning the Soviet-engineered resolution to brand Zionism as a form of racism. The address is now regarded as a classic, along with the oration from the same session by the US Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar slammed the decision, saying that Ireland’s “antisemitic and anti-Israel obsession is sickening.”
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Qatar’s Al Thani to Visit Beirut Wednesday to Meet with Lebanon’s Leaders
Qatar’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani makes statements to the media with then-US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in Doha, Qatar, Oct. 13, 2023. Photo: Jacquelyn Martin/Pool via REUTERS
i24 News – Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed Al Thani will visit Beirut on Wednesday to meet with Lebanon’s leaders, Al-Jadeed reported Saturday.
The visit comes “as part of an effort inseparable from the efforts by Egypt in coordination with Arab countries, foremost among them Saudi Arabia.”
The trip coincides with a sensitive period for the country, ravaged by war and deep economic crisis.
Lebanon is under growing pressure from both Israel and the United States to more swiftly disarm Hezbollah and other Islamist groups across the country, with Israel increasingly inclined to stop the Shiite militia from rearming and rebuilding its infrastructure.
Hezbollah was left devastated in the aftermath of a nine-day war last year, that saw Israel take out its command structure and lay waste to a significant proportion of its missile arsenal.
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Pope Removes Shoes But Doesn’t Pray on Visit to Istanbul’s Blue Mosque
Pope Leo XIV visits the Sultanahmet Mosque, known as the Blue Mosque, during his first apostolic journey, in Istanbul, Turkey, November 29, 2025. REUTERS/Kemal Aslan
Pope Leo visited Istanbul’s Blue Mosque on Saturday, removing his shoes in a sign of respect but not appearing to pray in his first visit as leader of the Catholic Church to a Muslim place of worship during his four-day visit to Turkey.
The first US pope bowed slightly before entering the mosque and was led on a tour of the expansive complex, able to hold 10,000 worshipers, by its imam and the mufti of Istanbul.
Leo, walking in white socks, smiled during the 20-minute visit and joked with one of his guides, the mosque’s lead muezzin – the official who leads the daily calls to prayer.
The Vatican appeared surprised that Leo had not stopped to pray during the visit and that he had not been welcomed to the mosque by the head of Turkey’s state-run religious organization, known as the diyanet, as had been planned.
About three hours after the visit, the Vatican released a press statement saying both the prayer and the welcome had occurred, although they had not. The Vatican press office said the release had been sent in error.
LEO’S FIRST TRIP AS POPE BEING CLOSELY WATCHED
Askin Musa Tunca, the muezzin, told journalists after the mosque visit that he asked Leo during the tour if he wished to pray for a moment, but the pope said he preferred to just visit the mosque.
The Vatican said in a statement immediately after the visit that Leo undertook the tour “in a spirit of reflection and listening, with deep respect for the place and for the faith of those who gather there in prayer.”
While Leo did not appear to pray during the tour, he did joke with Tunca. As the group was leaving the building, the pope noticed he was being guided out a door that is usually an entryway, where a sign says: “No exit.”
“It says no exit,” Leo said, smiling. Tunca responded: “You don’t have to go out, you can stay here.”
The pope is visiting Turkey until Sunday on his first overseas trip as pontiff, which also includes a visit to Lebanon.
Leo, a relative unknown on the world stage before becoming pope in May, is being closely watched as he makes his first speeches overseas and interacts for the first time with people outside mainly Catholic Italy.
The Blue Mosque is officially named for Sultan Ahmed I, leader of the Ottoman Empire from 1603 to 1617, who oversaw its construction. It is decorated with thousands of blue ceramic tiles, the basis of its popular name.
NO VISIT TO HAGIA SOPHIA
The 17th-century structure is located across from the Hagia Sophia, a former Byzantine-era cathedral that Leo did not visit, in a break from past papal trips to Turkey. The Hagia Sophia, one of Christianity’s most important places of worship for about a millennium, was made a mosque for 500 years after the fall of the Byzantine Empire.
It was converted to a museum by Turkey’s secular republic more than 70 years ago but turned back into a mosque by President Tayyip Erdogan in 2020.
The Vatican has not commented on Leo’s decision not to visit the Hagia Sophia. The late Pope Francis, who visited the structure during a 2014 trip to Turkey, said in 2020 that he was “very pained” that it had been made a mosque again.
Leo chose mainly Muslim Turkey as his first overseas destination to mark the 1,700th anniversary of a landmark early Church council there that produced the Nicene Creed, still used by most of the world’s Christians today.
At a ceremony on Friday to commemorate the Church council with Christian leaders from across the Middle East, the pope condemned violence in the name of religion and urged Christians to overcome centuries of heated divisions.
Speaking to senior clerics from countries including Turkey, Egypt, Syria and Israel, Leo called it a scandal that the world’s 2.6 billion Christians were not more united.
Leo repeated his condemnation of religious violence on Saturday at a Mass with Catholics at Istanbul’s Volkswagen Arena, attended by about 4,000 people.
He also met with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, who is based in Istanbul and is the spiritual leader of the world’s 260 million Orthodox Christians.
In a joint declaration, the two leaders lamented the number of bloody conflicts around the world and pleaded for civil and political leaders to pursue peace.