The controversy began with the use of the Star of David, which appears on Israel's flag and is a symbol of its government, in the show as one of the animated symbols dropped from a fighter jet during the song "Goodbye Blue Sky." Other symbols included a crucifix, crescent moon, and the U.S. dollar sign.
"'Goodbye Blue Sky' is all about and how I feel about the fields of the earth being bathed in blood because we're so determined to bombard our fellow man with our bit of ideology, or our bit of this, or our religion, and some took issue with that," Waters says.
Waters communicated with Anti-Defamation League national director Abraham Foxman and the rocker agreed to move the Stars of David further away from the dollar signs.
"His shows deliver messages, breaking down wall, etc. He uses symbolism, and that's one issue," Foxman told The Associated Press last week. "It's artistic exuberance and crossing the lines of whatever, but he's not an anti-Semite."
But Waters this summer opened a new chapter in the controversy when he included the Star of David, among other symbols, on one of his trademark inflatable pigs. Jewish dietary law strictly forbids eating pork.
Waters says a new set of pigs were built for the South America leg of the tour and the Star of David was one of the symbols added to them. "Since then, because of the complaints from some of the Jewish community, we've added a crucifix and star-crescent," Waters says.
But what has proved the greater concern for Foxman is Waters' support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which calls for economic, political and cultural pressure on Israel to protest its policies against the Palestinians.You get that. He had a Star of David on a pig, and then he got called on being an anti-Semite, so he put a Crucifix and a Crescent on two other pigs, and he thinks that makes him NOT an anti-Semite.