Roger Waters to headline 9/11 ‘truth’ conference at NYC-owned museum

NEW YORK — Former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters, a far-left conspiracist who has long been accused of antisemitism, is scheduled to headline a New York City conference run by a group that raises conspiracies about the September 11, 2001 terror attack.

The conference, called “Turning the Tide: 9/11 25 Years Later,” will be held at the publicly subsidized New York City-owned Museo del Barrio in Manhattan on September 10-13, during the anniversary of the attack, according to organizers. The museum appears to be renting space to the group, not sponsoring the event.

Waters and the group organizing the conference, the International Center for 9/11 Justice, have raised false allegations that Israel was involved in the al-Qaeda terror attacks.

The International Center for 9/11 Justice, a US-based nonprofit founded in 2008, says its goal is to create a “society that is no longer shaped by the false official account of 9/11.”

The group identifies with the “truth movement” that raises alternative explanations for the attacks and calls the attacks an “inside job” orchestrated by the US government with assistance from Israel and other countries.

“9/11 was the first step in the plan for US-Israel hegemony in the Middle East,” the group said earlier this year.

The four-day conference will include dozens of speakers and the premiere of a documentary film. General admission tickets cost $150, according to a press release.

El Museo del Barrio, known as El Museo, is a prominent cultural institution on the Upper West Side of Manhattan focusing on Latin American and Caribbean art.

The museum, an independent nonprofit, is a member of the city’s Cultural Institutions Group run by the Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA). El Museo and the other members are located on city-owned property and receive funding and operational support from the city.

The city’s 2026 budget showed that the museum received $3.5 million, in addition to around $14.7 million in previously allocated municipal funds that were still available.

The museum does not appear to be sponsoring the event, but renting out space to the organizers. According to advertisements for the event, the conference will be held at the museum’s El Teatro, a rental space at the museum. Organizers said event costs include “the crew at El Museo” managing livestreaming.

The museum has not advertised the event itself and the conference does not appear on its website or social media.

The museum says it offers discounts to nonprofits, like the International Center for 9/11 Justice, but it wasn’t clear if organizers had received the discount or how much the rental space cost.

The museum and event organizers did not respond to requests for comment.

The city’s Department of Cultural Affairs said it “was not aware of this event or its scheduled speakers and did not approve them.”

“El Museo del Barrio, like all members of the Cultural Institutions Group, is independently managed and operated by a private organization,” a spokesperson told The Times of Israel.

“While DCLA provides funding to the institution, it does not approve or oversee venue rentals, programming, speakers, or curatorial and administrative decisions. Decisions about who El Museo del Barrio decides to rent its venue to are the institution’s alone, not DCLA’s,” the Department of Cultural Affairs statement said.

Waters has endorsed conspiracy theories about the September 11, 2001, attacks, telling Tucker Carlson in July that the towers fell due to “controlled demolitions.”

“It fell down because it was demolished, and the question is, ‘Who placed the explosives in it? Who pressed the button?’” he said.

He alleged Israelis had foreknowledge of the attacks, saying, “They were dancing around, sort of congratulating themselves.”

After the September 11 attack, five Israelis were arrested after a New Jersey woman told police they were behaving suspiciously and had appeared happy while viewing the attack site from afar.

The men worked for a moving company and later said that their work had been canceled for the day due to the attack, so they drove to a spot in New Jersey where they could see the attack’s aftermath.

They were arrested, investigated, found to have overstayed their visas and deported. The FBI cleared the men of any links to the attack, though.

The incident has given rise to the “dancing Israelis” conspiracy that Israel was behind the attack, among other conspiracies linking Israel, Jews, or the Mossad to the attack.

Waters suggested to Carlson that the terror attacks were an excuse for American military activity abroad.

“They needed a Pearl Harbor, but who’s the ‘they’? Israel possibly had something to do with it. Elements possibly in the United States government,” he said.

Waters confirmed he would attend the conference on a podcast in July. He said the US government carried out the attack in that interview.

The International Center for 9/11 Justice has also suggested Israel had foreknowledge of the attack and shared material about the “dancing Israelis” theory.

Waters has also raised conspiracies or denied atrocities related to Hamas’s October 2023 invasion of Israel and has a history of anti-Jewish rhetoric.

In addition to Waters, at least four other speakers at the conference have linked Israel to the September 11 attacks. Jimmy Dore said the Mossad carried out the attack, Barbara Honegger blamed “Israel-first loyalists” in the US government, Jason Bermas said “obviously Israel had a role in 9/11,” and James Corbett said the “dancing Israelis” were the “real criminals of that day.”