DISTURBED’s DAVID DRAIMAN Once Again Slams ROGER WATERS For Boycotting Israel: ‘A Very Sick Man’

Roger Waters David Draiman

DISTURBED frontman David Draiman has once again slammed PINK FLOYD co-founder Roger Waters support for the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) campaign, which aims to pressure Israel to end the occupation of Palestine, among other things.

“The man is so delusional, the man is so wrapped up in his own psychosis and his own hatred disguised as this quote-unquote BDS campaign,” Draiman, told Israel’s Met Al Metal radio show. “The man is a very sick man.

“He performed [in Israel] and he made up stories about it – incorrect stories. I don’t know if you’ve heard him try to go ahead and say how, during that one performance, he tried to address the Israeli crowd and ask for peace and supposedly was met with negativity and boos, and whatever, and then they go ahead and show the video from the actual performance so many years ago, and the Israeli fans were cheering for peace.

“I don’t know what he did, drug-wise, during his life, but whatever he did fried a bunch of brain cells. The guy is not operating on all cylinders anymore.”

Last month, Draiman was asked by the Bring Disturbed To Israel Facebook page for his view on the Israel boycott by certain artists, including Roger Waters, to which he replied:

 “To elaborate a little bit on it, besides just my aggressive stance against it… The reasoning that no matter what side of the fence you sit on politically… And look, I don’t think anybody in any country always agrees with everything their country does — I don’t, okay?

“But I’m a very, very strong supporter of Israel forever and for our people. And regardless of whether it’s Israel or anywhere else, boycotting an entire society and an entire people based on the actions of its government is absolutely ridiculous. And it doesn’t accomplish anything. I don’t see boycotts happening of Russia; I don’t see boycotts happening of many of some of the countries that have some of the most oppressive, closed-off regimes in existence on the face of the planet, where LGBTQ people are persecuted, where all kinds of minorities are persecuted.

“I don’t see people boycotting China for what they’re doing to their Muslim population. It’s just Israel that gets this treatment, and I think we all know the reason behind that.”

He added: “There’s a special hatred that exists for the Jewish people in this world, and it unfortunately can’t be explained. It’s something that has lasted and has been deep seated for centuries, and that’s part of our burden as a people, unfortunately.

“You can’t accomplish anything in terms of trying to create peace, in terms of trying to create understanding by shutting things off. There has to be open roads of communication. You build bridges; you don’t knock them down. And music and entertainment is the perfect way to bridge that gap.

“And the very notion that Waters and the rest of his N*zi comrades decide that this is the way to go ahead and foster change is absolute lunacy and idiocy — absolute. It makes nosense whatsoever. It’s only based on hatred of a culture and of a people and of a society that have been demonized unjustifiably since the beginning of time.

“You wanna be able to bring people together? You wanna effect social change on a real level? Bring them together for a concert,” Draiman added. “It’s the perfect way. Music builds bridges, and the fact that anybody would try to dissuade artists from trying to do what their music was created to do in the first place is mind-boggling to me.

“And the fact that any artist would actually fall prey to this rhetoric and this way of thinking is mind-blowing to me. That they’re cutting off their noses to spite their faces just is completely the antithesis of what creating art is meant to do.”

DISTURBED played their very first show in Israel yesterday (July 2).