Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Howard Stern Rips Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters Over BDS in 7-Minute Rant

Radio personality Howard Stern ripped Roger Waters, the founding member of the rock band Pink Floyd, for his support of the boycott Israel movement.

“What is with Roger Waters and the Jews?” Stern asked Tuesday at the beginning of a seven-minute rant on Sirius XM Radio during which he implied that Waters is an anti-Semite.

The rant was motivated by an open letter that Waters published in Salon criticizing rocker Jon Bon Jovi for performing in Tel Aviv on Oct. 3.

“The Palestinians are these Arabs that could live in Egypt; they could live in Saudi Arabia, but guess what? Those countries don’t want them either,” Stern, who is Jewish, said on his show. “Israel has a little tiny country, and it bugs the s*** out of Roger Waters. He can’t f***in’ deal with it.

“Where do you want the Jews to go, Roger? You want them just to go back to the concentration camps? What is it you want, f***head?”

“Jews, go to the dark side of moon and live,” he said, referring to a popular Pink Floyd album.

A recording of the rant has been removed from YouTube, citing a copyright claim by Sirius XM.

During his concert, in an apparent swipe at Waters, Bon Jovi announced: “I’ll come here any time you want.”

In the letter to Bon Jovi, Waters accused the singer of standing “shoulder to shoulder” with “the settler who burned the baby,” referring to the arsonists, thought to be Jewish extremists, who firebombed a Palestinian home in August, killing a toddler and several family members. The act was condemned by Israel’s leaders.

Waters in his letter listed seven other Israelis who perpetrated attacks on Palestinians and pro-Palestinian activists. He said Bon Jovi had forfeited the opportunity to stand “on the side of justice,” listing pro-Palestinian activists and Palestinians whom Waters regards as heroes or victims.

The letter does not mention any Palestinian terrorist attacks or Israeli terror victims, including the two parents killed in a drive-by shooting in the West Bank.

Waters backs the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel for its policies concerning the Palestinians.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.