Reading the article, “Taking a stand after Pink Floyd,” about Roger Waters’ participation in the “Tree of Life” conference at the First Congregational Church of Old Lyme reconfirmed something most people already know: many celebrities are not very intelligent.

Waters has gained well-deserved notoriety for his support of BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) against Israel. Hypocritically, the same people who are working so hard to isolate Israel blast that tiny democracy for what they call its “siege” of Gaza.

Israel’s “siege” of Gaza is unique in the history of the world. Israel transfers massive amounts of humanitarian assistance to Gaza even as terrorists in the Hamas-controlled pseudo-state have launched tens of thousands of missiles aimed at Israeli civilians. Israel sends so much in the way of goods to Gaza that, at the same time anti-Israel activists were launching flotillas to break the “siege,” entrepreneurs in Gaza were exporting goods to Egypt, where they fetched far higher prices because there were oversupplies in Gaza and shortages in Egypt!

At almost the same hour the “Tree of Life conference” was starting in Old Lyme, there was yet another Arab terror attack in Israel, one with a more personal interest for me than most because it was at the bus station in Beersheva, where I have close relatives. Those supporting BDS and those trying to force Israel to end its efforts to prevent weapons from reaching Gaza are, in a very real sense, supporting those terror attacks and the terrorists launching them.

As a proud member of the Jewish people, who lives in Israel during the winter months, that’s personal. And when each year the First Congregational Church of Old Lyme holds what it calls a “Tree of Life” conference, but is really an anti-Israel jamboree featuring extremists, I find it not only personal, but disgraceful.

Virtually nothing in the skewed “Tree of Life” narrative corresponds to reality.

Here, in a nutshell, is the reality.

Israelis dream of peace. Many of their most popular songs are about peace. They’ve agreed to every serious proposal for ending the Arab war against the Jewish people that began long before the re-establishment of Israel in 1948. They’ve repeatedly offered to give away virtually all the disputed territory if only their Arab neighbors would agree to peace.

Unfortunately, their Arab neighbors have rejected every proposal and every offer, whether it’s come from the international community, as in the Peel Commission report in 1937 or the United Nations Partition Plan in 1947, or when made by Israel, as in the aftermath of the 1967 war, in 2000, 2001 or 2008. They not only spurned all those golden opportunities, but responded to them with either war or terror.

The current upsurge in Arab terrorism was inspired by the incendiary exhortations of Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, Fatah and the PLO.

Abbas is almost always referred to as a “moderate,” but he is anything but that. It was Abbas who ignited the flames by proclaiming “we bless every drop of blood that has been spilled for Jerusalem,” screaming he would not allow Jews to desecrate their holiest site with their “filthy feet” and falsely accusing Israel of changing the status quo on the Temple Mount.

As our secretary of state John Kerry was working hard to calm down the upsurge in Arab terrorism, and as the Tree of Life speakers were busy blaming everything on Israel, Mahmoud Abbas appeared on television in the Palestinian capital of Ramallah to falsely accuse Israel of “executing” an “innocent” Arab boy, even as videos were being shown of that “innocent” boy attacking several Israelis with a knife and it was known the Arab was alive, well and being well-treated at an Israeli hospital.

In my opinion, every drop of blood, Arab, Jewish and American – (yes, some of those murdered by Palestinian terrorists during the last few weeks have been American) – that has been spilled over the last month is on the head of Abbas and on the heads of those who support one-sided, anti-Israel and anti-peace initiatives like BDS.

That includes the former front man for Pink Floyd.

Alan H. Stein is a former resident of Waterbury who now splits his time between Natick, Mass. and Netanya, Israel. He is professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut and former president of the Jewish Federation of Waterbury.