Roger Waters urges Neil Young to nix Israel gig

English musician and singer Roger Waters posts a letter on his official Facebook page, asking singer-songwriter Neil Young to cancel his upcoming performance in Tel Aviv, set to take place this Thursday.

Waters reveals that he had written and sent the letter to Young in January, but after receiving no reply, is posting it on Facebook “in light of the appalling recent events in Israel and Gaza” and the Pink Floyd frontman’s “dismay at the the lack of any response from our governments.”

In an appeal to Young’s “possible attachment to the rights of all human beings,” Waters writes, “Like some others, but not many, your songs have always been redolent of love and humanity and compassion for your fellow man and woman. I find it hard to believe that you would turn your back on the indigenous people of Palestine. That you would lend support to, and encourage and legitimize, with your presence, a colonial apartheid regime, largely settled from Europe, that seeks to confine the native people of the land, either in exile or in second class status in reservations and ghettos.”

Attaching an article about the demolition of the Bedouin village of al-Araqib, Waters promises, “If you are in doubt about any of this, I will go with you to Palestine, and Israel, if they’ll let me in, you will see what I have seen, and then let us figure out the right thing to do.”