An open Christmas Greeting to a few Labour Politicians

December 24, 2018 / Gilad Atzmon

Dear Rt Hon. Jeremy Corbyn, Chris Williamson MP, Cllr Richard Watts and members of the Islington Council,

I would like to wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy new year.

I want to assure you that during the holiday I will not respond to the biased and unprovoked punitive ban that you imposed on me, and to the shame you have brought upon yourselves and your party. I want to allow you sufficient time to rethink your unreasonable actions. I do want to assure you that this story is not going to go away.

As soon as 2019 settles in I, along with the very active movement that has supported me in recent weeks, will push for answers.

We will ask:

1. The director of Likud-Herut UK threatened his absence at the concert in case of Gilad Atzmon being present. How is it that Islington Labour Council went out of it way to appease a right-wing pro-Israel activist? At the very least it appears that Likud UK is connected to a foreign government that has been hostile to the Labour party and its leader. This is when the Likud’s political philosophy is in direct opposition to the values that Labour espouses.

2. How is it possible that an impoverished Labour Council that has been forced to make significant cutbacks in essential services finds the funds to hire one of Britain’s most expensive law firms and appears ready to spend tens of thousands of pounds just to stop one of the world’s leading musicians from making a living and entertaining an audience at a Christmas event?

3. How do you justify that you, as a party, claim to care for the ‘many and not the few,’ yet you managed to cause a complete and blatantly prejudiced mess in response to a single pro-Israel campaigner and ignored the mass protests against your decision. A petition with thousands of signatures and hundreds of complaints were not addressed at all. Apparently, you ignored the ‘many’ to appease the ‘one.’

4. We will publish all the relevant documents and correspondence issued by the Council relating to this matter. Not a single document contained any comment I made or wrote that was hateful or discriminatory. It is of note that the quotations contained in the Council’s evidence were cut and pasted and/or taken entirely out of context. Instead, nearly all of the Council’s writing seemed sourced from hard core Zionist outlets such as the Jewish Chronicle, Jerusalem Post, Ynet, and the ADL, all of whom spew hatred towards me and my work. We must remind British officials of their obligation to be impartial. We will also publish the document in which the council dismisses as ‘anti-Semitic’ some of the greatest living humanists, quoting again the opinions expressed about them in the ultra right wing Zionist media.

5. We have further learned that one of the lawyers hired by the Council to encounter the menace of Gilad Atzmon’s saxophone also represented the ultra Zionist and leading Likud (and Trump) donor Sheldon Adelson. Did the Council take any steps to ensure that this representation did not interfere with its own impartiality?

6. In the last few days, the press has quoted a “Labour spokesman” who called me a ‘vile anti-Semite.’ Are political parties entitled to accuse law-abiding citizens of ‘hate crimes’? Would Labour also accuse a private British citizen of paedophilia or murder without any official record? Further, if Labour did find me guilty of hate speech and can substantiate it, why have they failed to notify the police?

This is enough for you to reflect upon. I will start to dig into these matters in early January. Your decision to operate in a Stasi-like manner, crudely interfering with the arts, freedom of speech, and my obligation to earn a living, suggests that you have become an existential threat for all of us and what we believe in.

We will deal with all of this in due course.

For the time being I hope that you can learn about my position on different matters that concern you through my Christmas Message:

njoy your holidays.

All the best

Gilad and thousands of very concerned citizens

P.S. I do accept that you are somehow fearful of good music but here is a rare opportunity to watch Santa Claus performing with the Blockheads. Give beauty a chance.