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News > U.S.

MLB to Cancel Roger Waters' Tour Promotions Over BDS Support

  • MLB to Cancel Roger Waters' Tour Promotions Over BDS Support

    | Photo: EFE

Published 11 February 2020
Opinion

Waters’ views on Israel “far exceed the boundaries of civil discourse,” the organization wrote in a letter to MLB commissioner Rob Manfred earlier this month.

Major League Baseball (MLB) has made the decision to stop promoting Roger Waters' tour due to his ongoing support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, the Associated Press reported on Sunday. 

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The MLB, which was sponsoring ticket pre-sales for Waters' "This is Not a Drill" tour, made the decision to halt its promotion following criticisms from Jewish advocacy groups, the report said. 

According to the Jerusalem Post, who received confirmation about the cancellation from the MLB, the B'nai B'rith Jewish advocacy and aid group was one of the most vocal critics of the promotion, noting that the BDS movement “far exceed[s] the boundaries of civil discourse," while adding that the movement itself is antisemitic.

“B’nai Brith is saddened and outraged that baseball – the sport of Jackie Robinson, Hank Greenberg, Sandy Koufax, and Roberto Clemente – would use its online resources to publicize an individual with an alarming history of anti-Semitic hatred," the group's statement read, as reported by Rolling Stone magazine.

Waters’ views on Israel “far exceed the boundaries of civil discourse,” the organization wrote in a letter to MLB commissioner Rob Manfred earlier this month.

The MLB previously said they would respond to B’nai B’rith in private, and on Saturday the league confirmed to the Associated Press that “there are no plans to schedule any more [Waters] ads on the MLB platforms.”

Waters’ summer tour begins July 8th in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and concludes October 3rd — a month shy of Election Day — in Dallas, Texas.

“As the clock ticks faster and faster and faster down to extinction, it seemed like a good thing to make a fuss about it, so that’s why I’m going on the road,” Waters said of the tour. “To be blunt, we need to change the way we organize ourselves as a human race or die. This tour will be part of a global movement by people who are concerned by others to affect the change that is necessary. That’s why we’re going on the road. That’s why speak to each other in pubs. That’s why this conversation should be on everybody’s lips, constantly, the whole time, because it’s super important. So I hope you’ll all come to the shows. This is not a drill.”

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