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October 27, 2013 2:23 pm
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Simon Wiesenthal Center Calls on Daily Show Host to ‘Give the Jon Stewart Treatment’ to Roger Waters

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Roger Waters on The Daily Show. Photo: Screenshot.

A major Jewish human rights group has called on the organizers and a performer at the major annual Stand Up For Heroes charity event, to speak out against rock and roll legend Roger Waters, who is scheduled to appear at the function, for contributing to anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hate.

“According to a study commissioned by the Ebert Foundation, 150 million Europeans harbor extreme anti-Israel and or anti-Jewish views,” Rabbi Abbraham Cooper, Associate Dean at the Simon Wiesenthal Center told The Algemeiner. “Roger Waters contributes to such hate.”

“At the minimum, the organizers of this charitable undertaking should call out Waters for parading the pig with a Magen David (Star of David),” Cooper continued, referring to a controversy earlier this year, in which Waters was called out for parading an inflatable pig emblazoned with a Star of David at his concerts. At the time Cooper described Waters as “an open hater of Jews.”

“In America at least, publicly calling out hate is the best disinfectant,” he continued.

The Stand Up For Heroes event, now in its 7th year, is presented by the Bob Woodruff Foundation and the New York Comedy Festival and will take place on November 6th at Madison Square Garden in New York. The event is set to feature performances by Jerry Seinfeld, Bruce Springsteen, Jon Stewart, Roger Waters and other surprise guests, according to the evening’s organizers.

Calling on The Daily Show host Jon Stewart, who is Jewish, to similarly voice objection of the former Pink Floyd bassist’s attitude towards Israel Cooper said, “Come on Jon– give the Jon Stewart treatment to Waters and his pig, he’s earned it…”

In January of this year Waters appeared as a guest on The Daily Show. Although Waters’ activism was discussed, Stewart was roundly criticized for not bringing up his anti-Israel views. “Stewart asked specifically about Waters’s political activities, but failed to bring up Waters’s most controversial political cause: his radical campaign against Israel,” wrote Joel Pollak at Breitbart.com.

“Waters has done far worse than spew tedious, hackneyed anti-Israel slanders such as comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa and calling for a cultural boycott. He has also taken his case against Israel to the United Nations, telling the UN that Israel was ‘guilty of a number of international crimes,’ including ‘ethnic cleansing.’ He also told the UN that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories was like the Nazi occupation of Europe,” Pollak said.

In August Waters penned a formal letter to “my brothers and sisters in the family of Rock and Roll,” which encouraged other artists to engage in a cultural boycott of Israel. “Please join me and all our brothers and sisters in global civil society in proclaiming our rejection of Apartheid in Israel and occupied Palestine, by pledging not to perform or exhibit in Israel or accept any award or funding from any institution linked to the government of Israel,” he wrote at the time.

The letter prompted harsh criticism from members of the Jewish community, including Israeli supermodel Bar Refaeli who tweeted, “Roger Waters, you should remove my picture from videos at your concerts. If you’re going to boycott, then go all the way.”

Last week, Algemeiner blogger David Mackler called on Stewart and Jerry Seinfeld who is also Jewish not to perform with Waters. “Roger Waters is a staunch advocate of boycotts against Israel, and he has continuously disparaged, degraded, and slandered both Jews and Israel in furtherance of his cause. It is time that educated Jewish celebrities such as you abandon complacency, and begin to speak up,” he wrote.

An online petition launched by Mackler calling for the celebrities to speak out, has attracted 158 signatories as of the time of publication.

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