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Roger Waters releases new Palestinian protest song

The Pink Floyd singer said he was releasing the song, Supremacy, to mark the anniversary of the 'catastrophe' of the creation of Israel

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Roger Waters has continued his relentless support for the anti-Israel Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement by releasing a new song recorded with a Palestinian group which he says is dedicated to all “victims of settler colonialism.”

The former Pink Floyd frontman said he was releasing the track, which sees him recite verses from a poem by Palestinian national poet Mahmoud Dawish, to commemorate the 70th anniversary of what Palestinians describe as the Nakba – “catastrophe” – of the creation of Israel.

The song, titled Supremacy, is also said to be a rebuke of President Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel with the intention of moving the US embassy there from Tel Aviv. 

In a statement, Mr Waters said of his collaboration with the French group Le Trio Joubran : “On the surface, [the poem] narrates the last speech of the Native American to the white man, but it speaks also to Darwish’s beloved Palestine and its indigenous people.

“In fact, [it’s relevant] to all victims of settler colonialism everywhere, always.”

Mr Waters' previous statements on Israel have been met with controversy and claims that he is antisemitic.

He compared the Israeli government to Nazi Germany and has also angered Jewish groups for using a pig-shaped balloon with symbols, including a Star of David, at one of his concerts.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center denounced the balloon as a “grotesque display of Jew-hatred” and called the musician an “open hater of Jews.”

In a video Mr Waters was asked what he would say about South Africans who claim that describing Israel as apartheid is insulting to their experience.

In his response, the musician called such people “entirely ignorant” and said “it’s hard not to go back to [Joseph] Goebbels,” the Nazi minister of propaganda. “The tactic is to tell the big lie as often as possible over and over and over again.”

Mr Waters recorded his latest song with Le Trio Joubran in Paris and London after President Trump's declaration last December.

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