The Biden administration is weighing in on the controversy over Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters, saying his recent performances in Germany were antisemitic.
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The State Department said Tuesday that Waters has "a long track record of using antisemitic tropes" and a concert he gave late last month in Germany "contained imagery that is deeply offensive to Jewish people and minimized the Holocaust."
The comments came in a written response to a question posed at Monday's State Department press briefing about whether the administration agreed with criticism of Rogers from the US special envoy to combat antisemitism, Deborah Lipstadt.
"Special Envoy Lipstadt's quote-tweet speaks for itself," the department said. "The concert in question, which took place in Berlin, contained imagery that is deeply offensive to Jewish people and minimized the Holocaust. The artist in question has a long track record of using antisemitic tropes to denigrate Jewish people."
In a May 24 tweet after the concert in Berlin, during which Waters appeared on stage in a costume reminiscent of Nazi-era Germany, Lipstadt denounced the musician by echoing comments from EU antisemitism envoy Katharina von Schnurbein, who is German.
"I wholeheartedly concur with @EUAntisemitism 's condemnation of Roger Waters and his despicable Holocaust distortion," Lipstadt wrote in reply to a tweet from von Schnurbein.
Von Schnurbein had taken issue with Waters' performance in Berlin as well as his previous comments related to Israel and the Holocaust.
"I am sick & disgusted by Roger Waters' obsession to belittle and trivialize the Shoah & the sarcastic way in which he delights in trampling on the victims, systematically murdered by the Nazis," von Schnurbein wrote. "In Germany. Enough is enough."
Shortly after the concert, police in Berlin said they had opened an investigation of Waters on suspicion of incitement over the costume he wore.
Images on social media showed Waters firing an imitation machine gun while dressed in a long black coat with a red armband. Police confirmed that the costume could constitute a glorification, justification or approval of Nazi rule and therefore a disturbance of the public peace.
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