Roger Waters rips Scarlett Johansson, Neil Young over Israel; SodaStream stock dips

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JERUSALEM — Roger Waters assailed actress Scarlett Johansson for working with SodaStream and musician Neil Young for his planned performance in Israel. In a Facebook post on Saturday, the former Pink Floyd frontman said he was making a public plea to Johansson and Young after writing to them privately in recent days.

Waters has publicly called for boycotts against Israel and made personal pleas to artists not to perform in Israel. Young is scheduled to perform in Israel in July. Johansson last week ended her relationship with the human rights group Oxfam following a protracted debate over her role as spokeswoman for the Israeli company SodaStream, which has a factory in the West Bank.

The factory employs Israeli and Palestinian workers.

In his public letter, Waters said Johansson’s “choice of SodaStream over Oxfam” is “an act of intellectual, political, and civil about face, that we, all those of us who care about the downtrodden, the oppressed, the occupied, the second class, will find it hard to rationalize.”The letter cites alleged human rights abuses by Israel against the Bedouin in southern Israel and poses questions about how Palestinians live under Israeli rule in the West Bank.

He concludes his letter, which mostly is directed at Johansson, by saying, “Scarlett, you are undeniably cute, but if you think SodaStream is building bridges towards peace you are also undeniably not paying attention.” In August, Waters published an open letter calling on fellow musicians to join a boycott of Israel.

He also recently came under fire for using at his concerts a huge inflated balloon in the shape of a wild boar with a prominently visible Star of David, among other symbols, including a dollar sign and a hammer and sickle. He has used the gimmick for several years.

Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman wrote in a Facebook post on Saturday night that “Our Oscar goes to Scarlett” for her “brave stand against immoral hypocrites.”

How this transcription was made

Date confirmed on the page (folio). Filed under the archive’s spelling; the page prints “St Louis Jewish Light”.

Context added by this archive

The whole West Bank question is handled in two clauses: ‘which has a factory in the West Bank. The factory employs Israeli and Palestinian workers.’ No Palestinian worker at Maale Adumim is quoted; no Bedouin is quoted; the human rights claims are ‘alleged.’

Also printed: SodaStream CEO Daniel Birnbaum said the Israeli government had reneged on a deal to provide millions in aid to expand its Negev factory within the 1967 borders, so the company would scale back that expansion and ‘will not abandon its West Bank factory in Maale Adumim, which employs Israelis and Palestinians.’

Cite this clipping

"Roger Waters rips Scarlett Johansson, Neil Young over Israel; SodaStream stock dips," St. Louis Jewish Light, 5 February 2014, p. 6. Covering Palestine archive, CP-2014-070. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-2014-070