Floyd's Israel promise

Roger Waters would perform gig if West Bank barrier is brought down

03 June 2009 - Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters has said he would happily perform a concert in Israel as soon as the West Bank part-wall part-fence division is demolished.

The Ayda Refugee Camp is one part of Palestinian homeland hemmed in by the controversial barrier, which Israel claim was built to protect them from Palestinian militants.

The singer - who wrote Floyd’s famous concept album The Wall - gave his word during his trip to the camp in the West Bank yesterday (2 June).

"If they take this thing down,” he said. “I would be delighted to come and do a concert here. In fact, I would insist on it."

This would mirror his performance at the site of the Berlin Wall in 1990, where he played the seminal album in full, shortly after it was demolished.

‘Pretty depressing’

The barrier, which was started in 2002, stretches for approximately 670-kilometres (420-mile) and is up to eight metres high.

Waters remarked: “This is a bad thing. This is wrong. This is not helping anybody, this thing."

Those in favour of it argue that it is a necessary protection tool from Palestinian terrorism, while people against the division claim it restricts Palestinians’ livelihood as traders are cut off from their land and means of economic survival.

Speaking to Associated Press Waters said: “When you stand in front of an edifice like this, whether it's here or outside a township in South Africa, or in the Warsaw ghetto during the Second World War or in Berlin in the 60s and 70s, there's something you know instinctively, this is wrong.”

The band performed a concert in Israel back in 2006 and Waters said he’s disappointed that things haven’t changed much since his last visit.

“It's actually very, pretty depressing, coming back here three years later and seeing that the political situation has changed very little - there are more settlements, there has been more grabbing of land,” he explained.

Georgie Rogers