Roger Waters, lead singer for rock music giants Pink Floyd, has lost a multimillion dollar sponsorship deal with American Express (Amex) for expressing support to students showing solidarity with the Palestinian people, Mondoweiss reported yesterday.
Waters said: “I’m going to send out all of my most heartfelt love and support to all those young people on the campuses of the universities of California who are standing up for their brothers and sisters in Palestine and supporting the BDS movement.”
The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, better known as BDS, is a movement that seeks to apply non-violent, peaceful means of resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestine through the use of grassroots economic measures.
."I'm sending love/support to all young people in campuses in California who are..supporting Palestine/BDS movement"https://t.co/lKzt8dxiIH
— Damanda C_Palestine (@amanda_damanda) October 29, 2016
Waters added that he was supporting these students in their stand for the Palestinian people “in the hope that we may encourage the government of Israel to end the occupation.”
Rather than staying quiet on the issue, Amex then decided to leak the story of the contract cancellation to the New York Post, in what some have deemed a retaliatory measure taken by a finance company against the Pink Floyd frontman.
“Roger is putting on a huge show. The company was asked to sponsor his tour for $4 million, but pulled out because it did not want to be part of his anti-Israel rhetoric,” an Amex spokesman told the New York Post.
Mondoweiss reported that Amex had previously sponsored popstar Beyonce’s performances, including ones which she used as a platform to protest police brutality against African Americans.
However, Amex seem to have an issue with Waters’ support for Palestinian rights.
(MEMO, PC)
