Major League Baseball has ended promotion on its websites of former Pink Floyd front man Roger Waters’ concert tour amid pressure from a pro-Israel Jewish advocacy group.
The group, B’nai Brith International, recently sent a letter to MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred imploring him to end the league's promotion of the concerts, calling Waters “an avowed anti-Semite.” Waters has long been a staunch critic of Israel and supporter of the Palestinian cause, including the BDS (boycott, divest, and sanction) movement.
MLB said the promotion ran as part of a larger ad buy by AEG/Concert West involving several other concert tours, and confirmed it had no further plans for such promotions, the Associated Press reported.
Waters’ activism has made headlines several times in recent years, costing him lucrative sponsorships with American Express and CitiBank. In 2015 he famously called out Bon Jovi for performing in Israel.
B’nai Brith, founded in 1843, touts itself as “the global voice of the Jewish community” and is the parent organization of the Anti-Defamation League.
MLB in recent months has seemingly moved in keeping with the foreign policy of US President Donald Trump. Last year it banned players from participating in the annual Venezuelan Winter League in accordance with the economic sanctions levied on that country. Trump too is a staunch supporter of Israel, and has inflamed tensions in that conflict by abandoning any pretense of US neutrality. Late last year, Trump signed an executive order aimed at curbing BDS protests on college campuses in the US.