I am writing to express my support for the organizers of the PennBDS conference taking place February 3-5 at the University

of Pennsylvania. I gather that the organizers and participants have suffered the usual attacks by those who seek to silence Palestinian solidarity activists by accusing them of anti-Semitism, of supporting terrorism, and of trying to destroy Israel. The boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement is not racist, it is not anti-Semitic, and it does not seek to destroy Israel. On the contrary, BDS is a broad based international movement supported by people of good conscience everywhere, including many Jews and Israelis, and is intended to bring pressure on the Israeli government to respect Palestinian human rights. As long as Israel continues to dispossess Palestinians from their ancestral homeland, further expand its illegal occupation, continue its illegal settlement program, and discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel, the BDS movement will continue to grow and gain momentum -regardless of the increasingly strident and extreme attacks made against it by so-called defenders of Israel. I applaud the organizers of the PennBDS conference and send them my strong support. Signed, Roger Waters (on tour Brisbane Australia) 31 January 2012