Roger Waters, in classic Roger Waters fashion, suggested he’s not ready to rule out the possibility that Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel might’ve been a “false flag operation” during a recent interview with Glenn Greenwald.
During the conversation, Waters couched his discussions of the attack — during which Hamas militants killed more than 1,4000 people, many unarmed civilians, and took hundreds of hostages — in heavy speculation. For instance, he said his initial reaction to Oct. 7 was, “let’s wait and see what happened,” and that his second was: “How the hell did the Israelis not know this was going to happen? And I’m still a little it down that rabbit hole.”
A few moments later, Waters offered a peak down said rabbit hole when he raised the unfounded possibility of a false flag attack. “What we do know is, whether it was a false flag operation or not, or whatever, or whatever happened, and whatever story we’re going to get to — and we don’t know if we’re ever going to get much of the real story. It’s very, it’s always hard to tell what actually happened.”
Israeli officials have promised to launch a full investigation into how the Oct. 7 attack was carried out. As it stands, reports suggest the attack was almost certainly not a false flag but the result of massive Israeli intelligence failures combined with a grave miscalculation of Hamas’ capabilities and intentions. “That’s what happens when you suffer a catastrophic systemic failure, and military headquarters and other installations are so close to the border,” an anonymous Israeli intelligence official told The Washington Post last month. “That’s what happens when you forget that all defense lines can eventually be breached and have been historically. That’s what happens when you underestimate your enemy.”
(After Oct. 7, Israel responded with a devastating siege on Gaza, launching countless air strikes and a ground invasion. The death toll has climbed above 10,000, and U.S. Secretary General Antonio Guterres recently called Gaza a “graveyard for children.”)
Waters, of course, has been a longtime supporter of Palestine and a vociferous critic of Israel, and over the years, his anti-Zionism and support of causes like the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement have led to claims that he is antisemitic. Waters has always rejected these accusations, largely on the grounds that anti-Zionism should not be conflated with antisemitism and that doing so is a way of stifling legitimate criticism of Israel and its treatment of Palestinians.
Nevertheless, Waters has arguably undercut his advocacy with language and gestures that nod to offensive tropes, stereotypes, and conspiracy theories about Jews. He’s taken flak for wearing Nazi-esque costumes on stage and performing next to flying inflatable pigs emblazoned with the Star of David and other religious symbols (though both fascist costumery and flying pigs do have old Pink Floyd roots). He’s also casually thrown around words like “cabal” when discussing early European Jewish settlers arriving in the Israel-Palestine region, and recently, several former collaborators, including The Wall producer Bob Ezrin, accused Waters of making antisemitic comments.
In light of all this, Waters’ interview with Greenwald was a familiar dance, even beyond his floating of the dubious “false flag” possibility. For instance, he said that, under the Geneva Convention, he believed it was “justified for [Hamas] to resist the occupation… they are absolutely legally and morally bound to resist the occupation.” And while he was quick to condemn any war crimes committed during Oct. 7, including the targeting of civilians, he also seemed to argue that the severity of the attack was “thrown out of all proportion by the Israelis making up stories about beheading babies.” (The beheading claim has never been officially verified. The Israeli government has shared graphic photos allegedly showing babies killed by militants, but none showed decapitations.)
Greenwald also asked Waters about the claims of antisemitism against him, including the notion that Waters seems to “value Palestinian lives more than Israeli lives.” Waters called those allegations “patent nonsense” and “complete rubbish,” adding, “This is the whole point of the difference between my platform and the Israeli government. I believe in equal human rights for all our brothers and sisters all over the world, irrespective of their ethnicity, religion, or nationality. The Israeli government doesn’t. For instance, in that local there — what we could call the Holy Land if we wanted to — they consider that people who, of the Jewish religion have a completely different set of rights to everybody else.”
Waters then proceeded to do some classic edging and hedging. He claimed his message has always been, “Do you subscribe to the idea of equal human rights or not? Cause as soon as you don’t, you are a Nazi.” Not missing a beat, he quickly backtracked with an exaggerated gasp, “And I know people — ‘You can’t say Nazi!’ … Anybody who is supremacist. Whatever you want to call it.”
