{"id":181234,"date":"2018-12-28T07:18:05","date_gmt":"2018-12-28T07:18:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=181234"},"modified":"2019-01-01T09:16:30","modified_gmt":"2019-01-01T09:16:30","slug":"uks-islington-council-banned-pro-palestinian-musician-at-behest-of-israels-far-right-likud-herut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=181234","title":{"rendered":"UK\u2019s Islington Council banned Gilad Atzmon at behest of Israel\u2019s Likud-Herut"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Richard Hugus \u2013 Redress Information and Analysis Dec 27, 2018<\/em><\/h1>\n

\"Collage<\/a><\/p>\n

More facts have come to light in the case of Gilad Atzmon and his banning<\/a><\/strong><\/span> by the London\u2019s Islington Council from performing at a jazz concert on 21 December 2018.<\/span><\/p>\n

The original scenario was that one email from one person calling Atzmon an anti-Semite somehow persuaded the council to take the drastic step of removing Atzmon from a town-owned venue. Many who heard the story felt this was a rash decision which would surely be reversed when the facts were brought to light. But the council voted to uphold its decision and Atzmon was indeed not allowed to play.<\/span><\/p>\n

UK Director of Likud-Herut<\/h3>\n

Now it appears that the single complainant \u2013 Martin Rankoff \u2013\u00a0 was not just an anonymous fan of Israel but the UK Director of Likud-Herut<\/a><\/strong><\/span>. Herut (Hebrew for \u201cfreedom\u201d) was Israel\u2019s founding nationalist party from 1948 until it later merged with Likud. It is a militant and extreme Zionist organisation whose roots go in a straight line from Ze\u2019ev Jabotinsky and Menachem Begin up to Binyamin Netanyahu today. Jabotinsky and Begin helped form the Irgun terrorist group in 1937. Irgun committed notorious massacres in Palestine in the period leading up to and during the Nakba<\/em> (or \u201ccatastrophe\u201d) of 1947-48. These include the bombing of the King David Hotel<\/a> <\/strong><\/span>in Jerusalem in 1946, killing 91 people, and the massacre at Deir Yassin<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 in 1948 in which 254 unarmed Palestinian villagers were brutally murdered as an incentive for other Palestinians to leave. On its website<\/a><\/strong><\/span> Likud-Herut UK lists Jabotinsky and Begin as \u201cvisionaries\u201d. Likud-Herut is a member of the World Zionist Organisation and the Zionist Federation of the UK<\/a><\/strong><\/span> which believe in \u201cthe inalienable right of all Jews to live and settle in all parts of the Land of Israel\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a letter to the New York Times<\/em> in 1948 Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt, and others compared Herut to the Nazis and Fascists who had just been defeated in World War II. Referring to this letter, Ramzy Baroud recently wrote<\/a><\/strong><\/span>;<\/span><\/p>\n

The \u201cNazi and Fascist\u201d mentality that defined Herut in 1948 now defines the most powerful ruling class in Israel. Israel\u2019s leaders speak openly of genocide and murder, yet they celebrate and promote Israel as if an icon of civilization, democracy and human rights.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hiring Likud godfather Sheldon Adelson\u2019s lawyers while cutting public services<\/h3>\n

The history of Herut and Likud tells us a great deal about who the people are who complained about Atzmon to Islington Council. When Atzmon moved to appeal his being banned, formidable opponents again appeared in the form of the Simkins Law firm, one of the most expensive law practices in Britain, with\u00a0 not one but two partners<\/a> <\/strong><\/span>at Simkins being put on the case. These are Gideon Benaim and Tom Iverson.<\/span><\/p>\n

It now appears that Atzmon\u2019s banning was not the result of a casual complaint; it was an intentional attack on a well-respected supporter of Palestinian human rights by the Likud organisation, directly represented by Martin Rankoff.<\/span><\/p>\n

Benaim recently became well known in Britain for winning an invasion of privacy suit against the BBC on behalf of pop singer Cliff Richard, who said he spent \uffe13.4m<\/a> <\/strong><\/span>($4.3 million) on the case. Clearly, representation by Simkins doesn\u2019t come cheap. Also listed in Benaim\u2019s resum\u00e9<\/a> <\/strong><\/span>as a client is the Las Vegas Sands Corporation which likely has no problem with Simkins\u2019s fees either. The Sands casino is owned by billionaire Sheldon Adelson who, as it happens, is a primary sponsor of the Likud Party in Israel, led by Binyamin Netanyahu. Adelson owns the newspaper Israel Hayom<\/em>, a mouthpiece for Netanyahu and Likud.<\/span><\/p>\n

It now appears that Atzmon\u2019s banning was not the result of a casual complaint; it was an intentional attack on a well-respected supporter of Palestinian human rights by the Likud organisation, directly represented by Martin Rankoff. The attack was followed up by the hiring of a lawyer who has worked for Likud godfather Sheldon Adelson. The connection to these powerful forces may explain why Islington Council leader Richard Watts, without any delay or attempt at negotiation, took the step of going straight to a decision to hire an expensive law firm. This is while Islington is facing serious austerity and shortage of funds in its own operating budget. Islington has a population of about 206,000<\/a><\/strong><\/span> people. This very month, 43 of those people were counted in one survey as homeless and sleeping on the streets<\/a><\/strong><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

A Labour council putting Israel ahead of the people of Islington<\/h3>\n

Regarding the financial problems of his borough and others around London, Richard Watts, told The Independent<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/span> in October 2018: \u201cUnprecedented\u201d funding pressures and demand for adult and children\u2019s social care and homelessness services was \u201cpushing councils to the limit\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs a result less money is being spent on the other services that keep our communities running such as libraries, local roads, early intervention and local welfare support,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet, to Watts and his fellow councilors in Islington, backing partisans for a foreign country \u2013 Israel \u2013 took precedence over the pressing needs of the people whom they are supposed to represent. Either Watts was inexcusably careless with scarce town funds or a deal was made and he knew that he could depend on Likud-Herut to back him. Or, like politicians all across Europe and the US facing the power of the Israel lobby, he knew he couldn\u2019t afford to say no.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Simkins\u2019s website<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, Gideon Benaim \u201chas extensive expertise in the areas of defamation, privacy, harassment and copyright\u201d. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that immediately after Islington brought in Simkins, identical statements from an unnamed Labour spokesman describing Atzmon as \u201ca vile anti-Semite\u201d appeared in both the BBC<\/a> and The Guardian<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/span>. Perhaps a lawyer experienced in defending people against defamation and harassment would also know how to perpetrate these things. Perhaps this was Benaim\u2019s opening move. Character assassination is a common tactic in cases that have a weak legal foundation, such as this one, as it goes a long way to convicting the accused before their case ever reaches a courtroom.<\/span><\/p>\n

The involvement of Likud-Herut in the attack on Gilad Atzmon, and Islington\u2019s official backing of that attack, constitutes a monumental scandal. This wasn\u2019t just a stupid mistake; it was a hit. It is an affront to reason that an arch-racist organization like Likud, who from the beginning have stood for the removal of the people of Palestine from their own land by means of terror, murder, and forced expulsion, could possibly claim they they<\/em> were defamed by someone pointing out these very crimes. There is a case of defamation here for sure \u2013 the defamation of Gilad Atzmon. For Zionists, defamation is nothing more than a tool to destroy opponents who can\u2019t be dealt with by other means. We are long since tired of truth tellers being accused of anti-Semitism. We\u2019re tired of national and local resources being used to prop up the criminal state of Israel. Coercion by advocates for Israel is at the center of this issue in Islington, as it is in many other towns and many other countries. For the sake of Palestine and our own sovereignty, it has to be called out and stopped.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/a>\u00a0
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What does it tell Londoners when the Israeli government sends Islington Council an order and it obeys?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=181234"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":181238,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181234\/revisions\/181238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=181234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=181234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=181234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}