Waters ‘brainwashed himself’

Jewish Telegraph, April 2023

IT’S no secret that there is no love lost between the Creative Community for Peace and anti-Israel activist Roger Waters.
“He calls us out all the time,” said director Ari Ingel, “which makes us understand that we’re having an impact.
“We provide guidance, support to groups like Maroon Five, One Republic or whoever it may be — and Waters doesn’t like that.
“So when he makes his boycott calls, he says, ‘you’ll be hearing from Creative Community for Peace, don’t listen to them. They’re really part of the Israeli government’ — all these ridiculous claims.
Ari added: “I’m an entertainment attorney and music manager; Traci’s worked in publicity and marketing in the entertainment industry her whole life.
“Our organisation is made up of people from the entertainment community, which is really our secret sauce and why we’re so successful and how we know all these artists and entertainers. It’s a very insular community. And we can pick up the phone and talk to them directly.
“Traci Szymanski takes artists and entertainers to Israel and we also hold a lot of educational events. Sherry Lansing, the former CEO of Paramount Pictures, hosted a great event in her house last year, and we talked to the entertainment community about this.
“We get together at some of the agencies and bring together young agents and managers and talk to them about the logistics of playing in Israel, what they may face and what the boycott movements are really about.
“We just ran a series called Dispelling the Myths, which people can check out on our website or YouTube. It dispels some of the myths levelled at Israel, like Israel is an apartheid state, Jews aren’t indigenous, and all these sorts of crazy myths. We’ve even had on Khalil Shikaki, who is the main pollster in the West Bank, to talk about what Palestinians are thinking.
“And we also had Mira Awad, an Israeli Arab musician. On that podcast episode, she called out Roger Waters and says at the end of it, ‘how dare he tell me, a Palestinian, what I should be boycotting in the country I live in’.”
Advisory board member Traci added: “It’s really hard when you’re speaking against a fanbase because people are loyal to artists. They are going to be loyal to an artist no matter what they’re saying, no matter how false it is. The key here is just continuing to do things to educate as many people as we can.
“Because when people know the truth, when they know history, when they know what’s really going on, hopefully that deters them from just listening to somebody spewing hate.
“And at this point in time, we need people who are brave enough to stand up and speak out. And there’s some amazing people doing that, from all walks of life, from all backgrounds and religions.”
Traci added: “I think Roger Waters is getting hit harder than he would have expected from different angles, with various countries, people and organisations standing up against him.
“He’s brainwashed himself. The more people realise that he’s crazy, the better. All we can do is continue to educate as many people as possible, especially within the entertainment influencer communities and hope that people are educated and have learned about the situation and are open to knowing history beyond just talking about propaganda.”
She also believes there are ”far too many people on social media speaking on issues that they know nothing about. And that’s very dangerous.”
She said: “We’re not hiding anything. Go to Israel, talk to us, talk to this person, that person, talk to these communities. We will introduce you to people. Learn and then decide.”