British musician Roger Waters confirmed during a student forum held last week to support pro-Palestine students at McGill University that Israel is an apartheid state.

As part of a forum to criticize the McGill University’s administration for threatening pro-Palestine students, Waters said, “It’s impossible to have any conversation about the Zionist project in Palestine without using the word apartheid because it has become generally accepted by anyone with an IQ above room temperature or anyone who has any knowledge at all the situation in the occupied territories.”

He added, “It’s about a bunch of, you know, Europeans back in the middle of the 19th century deciding that they were going to take over this piece of land, and kick out anybody that lived there and take it over for themselves and for their own little cabal.”

Waters’ participation was met with widespread criticism from Jewish groups who claimed that he should have spent his time supporting groups that build bridges between communities rather than “demonizing Israel and its supporters.”