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‘We Have Survived Worse’: Disturbed’s David Draiman Slams Roger Waters, BDS at Tel Aviv Concert
by Shiryn Ghermezian
David Draiman of Disturbed at Summerfest Music Festival on June 30, 2022, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Photo: Daniel DeSlover/Sipa USA
David Draiman, the frontman of the American heavy metal band Disturbed, paused his concert in Tel Aviv on Wednesday night to share a message with the audience about Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters, an avid supporter of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel who also has a history of making antisemitic comments.
During the concert at Expo Tel Aviv, in which Draiman also wore a shirt that featured the emblem of the Israel Defense Forces, he shouted from the stage, “F__k Roger Waters and all the rest of his BDS nazi a__holes — every last single one of them! We don’t need that s__t. We’ve survived worse than them and we will continue surviving worse than them!”
Draiman, who is Jewish, additionally sang Israel’s national anthem Hatikvah toward the end of the show, as the crowd sang along. He also sang Hatikvah at the band’s 2019 concert in Israel, which was also their first-ever show in the country. Wednesday’s concert was their second time performing in the Jewish state. The Sound of Silence singer trained to be a cantor when he was younger and his grandfather was a cantor in Israel.
Draiman is an ardent supporter of Israel and has frequently spoken out against antisemitism, the BDS movement and Rogers, condemning the latter’s efforts to “distort truth on behalf of their ridiculous hateful narrative” against Israel.
Rogers, Pink Floyd’s former frontman, recently held a series of concerts as part of his This Is Not a Drill world tour where he performed on stage in an outfit that resembles a Nazi uniform. The singer is notorious for making inflammatory and antisemitic comments in media interviews about Israel and the Jewish people, as well as encouraging a boycott of the Jewish state. He has talked about the alleged power of the “Jewish lobby” in the US, accused Israel of genocide and apartheid against the Palestinians and has also compared Israel to Nazi Germany.
His past tours have featured a massive pig emblazoned with a Star of David and he accused Israel of ethnic cleansing, apartheid and “international crimes” in a November 2012 address at the United Nations.
