British musician Roger Waters defamed former BBC investigative reporter John Ware when he called him a “pro-genocider” and a “lying, conniving Zionist mouthpiece” on Al Jazeera, according to a preliminary judgment handed down by a British judge on Tuesday.
The former Pink Floyd frontman’s comments on the Al Jazeera program “The Stream” on Feb. 15, 2024, “were bald statements of fact,” ruled Jennifer Eady of the High Court’s King’s Bench Division.
“By saying that the claimant was ‘cheerleading the genocide of the Palestinian people,’ or that he was a ‘pro-genocider,’ the first defendant was saying that the claimant did, as a matter of fact, positively support the genocide of the Palestinians,” the ruling stated. “The statements are defamatory of the claimant at common law.”
Waters is being sued for libel for the comments about Ware, who helped produce the 2023 documentary “The Dark Side of Roger Waters” for the Campaign Against Antisemitism.
The 37-minute film sought to “examine the evidence for the charge that Roger Waters is an antisemite.”
Former collaborators of the rock star told Ware of many instances in which Waters made antisemitic comments. An email featured in the film suggests that Waters sought to introduce an antisemitic slur and to refer to Jews as “dirty” on the flying pig that has been featured at his concerts. Instead, he incorporated a Star of David.
Waters also wanted to drop confetti on audiences that featured swastikas, Stars of David and dollar signs, per the film.
The preliminary ruling sets out the meaning of the words complained of and whether they were statements of fact or opinion. Waters will be able to defend himself at a later hearing. It wasn’t immediately clear when that would be.
Ware’s attorneys argued in the High Court that the documentary did not contain “anything adverse about the Palestinians, which could be interpreted as showing that Mr. Ware was in favor of their genocide, a genocide cheerleader and so on.”
“All Mr. Ware did was make a documentary about Mr. Waters’s alleged antisemitism,” they stated.
Waters’s lawyers told the court that while the remarks were “trenchant,” the public “already knew” the musician’s controversial views on Israel.
In a filing, Al Jazeera argued that Ware’s film “has not pulled its punches” and that Waters “does not pull his punches in response,” adding that viewers were made aware that “these are Waters’s strong opinions.”
Waters has faced widespread criticism for featuring Holocaust and anti-Jewish imagery at his concerts, in addition to his consistent denial of Hamas atrocities.
His hostile stance toward the Jewish state has triggered a wave of condemnations from Israeli politicians and Jewish groups worldwide.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described his rhetoric as baseless and full of hate, and the Anti-Defamation League and others have also called for boycotts of his performances.