Israeli Filmmaker Detained, Removed from Roger Waters London Concert for Waving Israeli Flag
Others present reportedly said people at the concert holding PLO flags were not similarly penalized.
By Shiryn Ghermezian, The Algemeiner
Emilio Schenker, an Israeli filmmaker and the CEO of Tel Aviv-based entertainment company Sipur Studios, was detained by security and then escorted out of a Roger Waters concert in London after waving an Israeli flag, according to a video shared by Schenker on social media.
Schenker attended a concert by the former Pink Floyd frontman at the O2 Arena in London last week as part of the singer’s This Is Not a Drill world tour. Schenker shared a video on Instagram on Thursday of him standing up from his seat during the show and raising an Israeli flag as Rogers performed on stage in an outfit that resembles a Nazi uniform. In the video’s caption he wrote hashtags that included “Freedom of Speech” and “standwithisrael.”
A few minutes into the video, a security personnel is seen approaching Schenker and violently grabbing his arm and refusing to let go, until Schenker manages to pull away. The security guard then climbs over the barrier separating Schenker’s seat from the stage and surrounds him with other security members who detain Schenker until he is escorted out of the arena.
Others at the concert reportedly told the Israeli news outlet Mako there were audience members who had Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) flags with them but were not penalized while seven security guards forcibly took Schenker to an interrogation room, searched him and took his Israeli flag.
A Holocaust survivor’s daughter was also reportedly manhandled by security personnel and removed from the singer’s London concert on Wednesday after waving an Israeli flag that said “Hey Roger, leave us Jews alone,” The Jewish Chronicle reported. She and other Jewish activists raised Israeli flags when Waters fired a prop gun into the air while wearing his Nazi-style costume. Security also confiscated her Israeli flag.
Waters wore the same Nazi-style uniform in May during two concerts in Berlin, where he also had a video screen backdrop that showed the name of Holocaust victim Anne Frank and compared her to the late Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh, who was killed last year while reporting on a military operation between IDF soldiers and Palestinians in Jenin. Police in Berlin opened a police investigation into Waters following his Berlin shows.
Waters came to the United Kingdom in late May as part of his world tour and although he reportedly did not wear his Nazi-style outfit in his show in Birmingham on May 31, the look returned for his two concerts in London on June 6 and 7. The London concerts also showed the same screen with Frank’s name although this time she was compared to Rachel Corrie, an American killed unintentionally by an Israeli-owned bulldozer. The British educational charity The Anne Frank Trust UK said in a released statement that it was ‘“wildly inappropriate” for Waters to “misuse Anne Frank’s legacy.” The Nazi-style outfit made an appearance again on June 10 at the Waters concert in Manchester.
Waters’ “This is Not A Drill 2023” tour includes five German cities before touring in England. He has already played in Munich, Cologne, Hamburg and Berlin, with the last date in Frankfurt on Sunday. A ban on the Frankfurt concert imposed by the city council in February was overruled on appeal.
The 79-year-old Waters has established himself as one of the most visible supporters of the campaign to subject the State of Israel to a regime of “boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS)” as a prelude to its elimination as a sovereign state. As well as including antisemitic motifs in his concerns, Waters has made incendiary comments in a number of media interviews about the alleged power of the “Jewish lobby” in the US and Israel’s supposed program of “genocide” targeting the Palestinians.
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