nation / world
Roger Waters Uses Anne
Frank’s Name at German
Concerts, Prompting Calls for
Punishment Roger Waters projected Anne Frank’s
name at recent concerts to draw com-
parisons between Israel and Nazi
Roger Waters performs in Munich
on May 21.

Germany, leading Germany’s Orthodox
rabbinical association to call for a ban on
his performances in the country, JTA.org reported.

Observers said that Waters, the former Pink Floyd frontman known as a leader in
the boycott Israel movement, has lumped Anne Frank with Palestinian Al Jazeera
journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in on-screen projections at concerts on his current
tour. Abu Akleh was killed on an assignment in the West Bank last year.

The Belltower journalist Nicholas Potter, who observed the May 17 Berlin concert,
argued that Waters promoted antisemitic language.

In speech bubbles on an LED screen in the Mercedes-Benz Arena, Waters
blamed the world’s troubles on “THE POWERS THAT BE,” which Potter described
as “an ominous, overpowering elite that is not explicitly named — this is an antise-
mitic blueprint on which many conspiracy narratives work.”
Before the event, BDS supporters outside the arena handed out flyers and held
up banners, one of which read, “Jews, Israelis and internationals all agree with the
Roger,” added Potter, noting that the average concertgoer appeared to be white,
German and around 60 years old.

German Court Acquits COVID Denier Who Compared Israel to
Nazi Germany
A German microbiologist known for repeatedly spreading misinformation about the
coronavirus was acquitted on May 23 of incitement to hatred for comments about
Jews and Israel, JTA.org reported.

In a 2021 campaign video for the fringe political party die Basis (The Basis),
Sucharit Bhakdi, 74, a well-known critic of Germany’s pandemic restrictions, said that
the Jews had learned evil under Hitler and are utilizing it in Israel to spread more evil.

“The people who fled from this land where the arch evil was, and have found their
land, have turned their own land into something even worse than Germany was,”
Bhakdi said in the video. “That is the bad thing about the Jews. They learn well.”
Prosecutors at the Plön district court argued that Bhakdi’s comments could lead
to the targeting of Jews in Germany. But a judge concluded that it couldn’t be deter-
mined without reasonable doubt that Bhakdi had spread antisemitic hatred toward
Jews, rather than a specific criticism of the Israeli government and its vaccination
policies, German newspaper Tagesspiegel reported.

Angelika Warmuth/picture alliance via Getty Images via JTA.org
CNN’s Christiane Amanpour Apologizes for Saying Killing of
British Israelis Happened in ‘Shootout’
CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour apologized on May 22 for saying in April that the
killing of three British Israelis happened in a “shootout.”
Amanpour was referring to the shooting of three members of the Dee family, who
were killed in a West Bank terror attack in early April by a Palestinian gunman. Maia
and Rina Dee, ages 20 and 15, respectively, were killed, and their mother, Lucy, 48,
later died of her wounds.

Soon after the attack, Amanpour said on screen that the Dee daughters “were
killed in a shootout, and now the mother has died of her injury.” She commented
amid a recounting of recent violence between Israelis and Palestinians, which has
escalated this year.

Honest Reporting, a pro-Israel media watchdog, tweeted to Amanpour, “You owe a
grieving family an apology.” And this week, Rabbi Leo Dee, the husband and father of the
victims, said he was considering suing CNN for $1.3 billion, according to the Jewish Journal.

The next day, Amanpour apologized on air. ■
— Compiled by Andy Gotlieb
Jewish Exponent
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