Contrast this with 2 of the e-mails Ghada sent me when I wrote to her about her being billed to speak alongside Atzmon, the first on 26th April:

Thanks,Tony. I have been trying to pull out and am urgently trying to find an email contact for them. I’m in Jordan currently, and not back till next week. Do you have a contact for the organisers?

Ghada

Unsurprisingly given the lack of knowledge about who was organising the event, Westminster University have pulled the plug on the event. However the Jewish Chronicle in one of its most extraordinarily dishonest reports (even by its standards) Westminster university cancels anti-Zionist event when of course it knows that Atzmon is an anti-Semite not an anti-Zionist. This is no accident of course because the JC has an agenda. It goes on to say that

‘The event had been promoted by groups including the Stop the War Coalition, the white nationalist Stormfront movement, and the Real IRA.’

Of course this is nonsense. Stop the War Coalition have not promoted the meeting and the views of the neo-Nazi Stormfront or indeed the Zionist Federation’s allies, the EDL, are irrelevant. As for the Real IRA I can only assume that this was made up. The JC report also omits Alan Hart’s withdrawal.

Atzmon himself has gone haywire. His ego severely dented as he has been abandoned by everyone (except the JC and Stormfront!). On his ego-driven website, the affair is modestly entitled ‘Gilad Atzmon: Drama in London’

However this is a severe embarassment to Atzmon. It’s all the fault of the Zionists, especially the Jewish anti-Zionist ones! He writes that:

The venue as well as the panelists (except myself funnily enough) came under severe pressure that verged on abuse: one of the panelists admitted to the organisers that he had received twelve phone calls from different Jewish ‘anti-Zionist’ activists, who insisted that — ‘for the sake of Palestine’– no one should share a stage with Gilad Atzmon….

I guess that Jewish ‘anti Zionists’ know better than everyone what is good for Palestine, they are chosen after all.

John Rose and Ghada Karmi pulled out, and that is understandable: not many can endure such a level of abuse..’

Of coure this is a tad dishonest. Ghada wanted out, in fact she’d never asked to be in. John Rose was misled about the purpose of the meeting. As for Alan Hart, he will no doubt explain his own views on the matter since he hasn’t responded to my e-mails.

But of course is Atzmon wishes to debate his politics then I’m more than up for it. But what Gilad wants is to be taken seriously by academics and those in the know. What he doesn’t want is to have to put his ideas to the test, for reasons which are obvious.