High Court delivers meaning judgment in libel claim by journalist John Ware against Roger Waters and Al Jazeera

Roger Waters is renowned as co-founder of the British progressive rock group Pink Floyd, whose albums The Dark Side of the Moon, and The Wall are among the best-selling of all time.  Since leaving the band in 1985, Waters has consistently toured as a solo artist, continuing to play Pink Floyd material as well as his own.  His 2010-13 tour The Wall Live was one of the highest-grossing concert tours of all time.  He continues to tour to this day, despite being into his eighties.  Long a vocal supporter of Palestine, in recent years Waters has come under increasingly stinging criticism over his remarks about Israel, and provocative imagery at his shows.  In September 2023, the Campaign Against Antisemitism released a documentary directed by the experienced journalist and documentary-maker John Ware, entitled The Dark Side of Roger Waters.  It posed the question ‘is Roger Waters antisemitic?’, and featured contributions from former collaborators of Waters who claimed that he had made offensive remarks about Jewish people.  Waters issued a statement denying that he was antisemitic.  This, of course, was before the brutal October 7 attacks on southern Israel by Hamas, and the war in Gaza which followed them.

In February 2024, Waters was interviewed for The Stream, a current affairs programme that airs on the Al Jazeera English news channel.  During the interview, an extract from The Dark Side of Roger Waters was put to him.  In response, Waters said, amongst other things:

‘John Ware the supposed journalist who you saw at the beginning of that clip, is a well-known, lying, conniving Zionist mouthpiece…

…John Ware is an old adversary, and he will be standing up now cheerleading the genocide of the Palestinian people like almost more than anyone else on earth, that is who John Ware is.  I have nothing but utter contempt for him…

…I sat through the whole of that documentary and it’s a complete joke...

…The genocide going on in Gaza now has absolutely proved beyond all doubt that those of us who’ve been standing up for Palestinian rights for the last 20 years are not only not – are not antisemitic; our motivations are not against the Jewish religion or the Jewish people…

…The difference between me and John Ware, and the difference between all of us on our side of the argument and all of the pro-Zionist, pro-genociders, is that we believe in Paris 1948 Declaration of Human Rights; we believe that all our brothers and sisters all over the world should be equal under universal law.

That’s what the Paris Declaration 1948 December 10^th said, OK?  They don’t – John Ware doesn’t, Binyamin Netanyahu doesn’t – none of them believe in human rights.  That is why they call me an antisemite and the others who stand up for the Palestinian people, because we believe in human rights…’

Waters went on to say that artists were entitled to have political opinions, and that the Israelis were murdering an entire people.

Two slightly different versions of the programme were broadcast, the latter of which did not include Waters’ statement that Ware would be ‘cheerleading the genocide of the Palestinian people’ but still contained the statement linking Ware to ‘pro-genociders’.

Ware subsequently sued Waters and Al Jazeera for libel (complaining about both versions of the programme).  As is common in defamation claims, the matter was listed for a trial of preliminary issues to determine the meaning of the statements complained of by Ware, whether they were statements of fact or opinion, and, to the extent that they were opinion, whether the basis of the opinion was indicated.  The question of whether the statements were defamatory of Ware at common law (i.e. likely to lower people’s opinion of him) was not in issue, as all the parties agreed that they were.  The preliminary trial was heard by Mrs Justice Eady on 10 February 2025, with judgment handed down on 25 February 2025 (a transcript of both iterations of the programme broadcast can be found annexed to the Judgment).

Although the parties contended for slightly different meanings, the real battleground was the questions relating to opinion.

Both parties agreed that the whole of the programme had to be taken into account, but they presented the theme of programme differently.

Ware contended that what emerged clearly was the assertion that he had deliberately and dishonestly attacked Waters in his documentary because of Waters’ advocacy for the Palestinian people, that the documentary had been a propaganda piece, and that Ware personally and wholeheartedly supported the genocide of the Palestinian people.  These, Ware contended, were clearly statements of fact, or, to the extent that they were opinion, they were ‘bare’ opinion, with no indication of their basis provided.

Waters and Al Jazeera contended that the programme made clear that Waters was someone who was known for expressing very strong political opinions, and that the programme was about Waters and his opinions, which were inevitably going to be partisan.  Viewers would have understood, in this context, that Waters’ comments about Ware were statements of opinion (in particular as they were directed to Ware’s motives), the bases of which were the documentary which had elicited the comments about Ware, Waters’ more generally stated world view, and his characterisation of Ware as an ‘old adversary’.

The Judge found that the programme did make clear that the interview was going to be all about Waters’ politics, and she also accepted that it was clear from the outset that the interview was not a hostile one, and that Waters appeared to assume he was speaking to those who agreed with him.  These were factors which affected the impression given to the viewer, and therefore relevant context for the Judge’s determinations.

In respect of Waters’ comments that Ware was a ‘well-known, lying conniving, Zionist mouthpiece’, the Judge considered that this was a statement of opinion about the documentary (that it contained lies about Waters) and Ware’s motivations for making it (in response to Waters’ statements about Israel and Palestine, and because Ware was acting as a Zionist mouthpiece), the basis of which were indicated to be the documentary itself, which Waters had said he had watched the whole of.  Accordingly, the Judge found that this statement meant:

Ware had made a documentary [fact]…

…that contained lies about the Waters, and he had done that as a response to Waters’ public support for the Palestinian cause because he (Ware) was acting as a Zionist mouthpiece and wanted to undermine what Waters was saying [opinion].

In respect of Waters’ comments that Ware would be ‘cheerleading the genocide of the Palestinian people’ and was among the ‘pro-genociders’, the Judge found that these were ‘bald statements of fact’ which were impressionistically distinct from the comments about the documentary.  What was opinion was Waters’ reference to what was happening in Gaza as a ‘genocide’ (the basis for which was indicated to be the conduct of Israeli forces in Gaza).   Accordingly, the Judge found that this statement meant (in both edits):

Ware positively supported the genocide of the Palestinian people by Israeli forces [fact].

(whereby "genocide" means the wholescale destruction of the Palestinian people) [opinion].

Comment

The honest opinion defence provided by section 3 of the Defamation Act 2013 is a very powerful one.  There are three core ‘conditions’ which a defendant must satisfy to avail themselves of the defence (see our February 2024 blog piece here for a detailed analysis).   The first two conditions – namely that (i) the statement is one of opinion, and (ii) that the publisher indicates the basis for the opinion (whether in specific or general terms) – are frequently tested at preliminary issue trials, as was the case here.  A

Many defamation cases settle shortly after preliminary issue trials.  Sometimes that is because the meaning found by the Court is too severe for a defendant to seek to prove the truth of it.  Other times it may be because a defendant succeeds in establishing at least the first two conditions of the honest opinion defence.  Although such a defence may fail on the third core condition (which requires that an honest person could have held the opinion on the basis of a fact which existed at the time), or if the claimant succeeds in proving that the defendant did not, in fact, hold the opinion, it i can be risky for a claimant to proceed all the way to trial on this basis.  The level of risk will of course depend on the circumstances of the case.

One can see, therefore, why this case proceeded this far.  In particular, had the Court found that all the statements complained of were statements of opinion, Waters and Al Jazeera would have had a far stronger hand.  In the event, they succeeded in part, but – in theory – will now have to prove the truth, or substantial truth, of the allegation that Ware positively supported the genocide of the Palestinian people (which, on the face of it, is a far graver accusation than that of being a ‘Zionist mouthpiece’ or making a documentary which contained lies about Waters).  Thus, whilst Ware might not be entirely happy with the outcome (he might think it odd, in particular, that Waters’ accusation that the documentary contained lies about him was found merely to be Waters’ opinion), he will presumably be the happier of the parties.  We will have to wait and see whether the claim now settles or whether it proceeds towards trial.  Settlement is unlikely to come easily to the two individual ‘old adversaries’, but the tribulations of litigation can sometimes serve to overcome the deepest of divisions.

The judgment in Ware v Waters and Al Jazeera [2025] EWHC 389 (KB) can be found here.