SIR – A concert at Bradford Cathedral on Friday, November 25, has aroused a chorus of fury.
What has made them so angry? The fact that the concert will feature the saxophone playing of Gilad Atzmon, an Israeli musician who opposes the occupation of Palestine.
‘Lottery cash funds Jew-hate jamboree’ screams the Jewish Chronicle. And, according to that paper, “The [Jewish] Board of Deputies has protested to the Arts Council over its funding of the concert and urged it to intervene to halt Atzmon’s appearance”.
The astonishing thing about these diatribes is that they do not come from extremist groups but from the Zionist establishment, who denigrate any criticism of Israel, however reasonable, as ‘anti-Semitism’.
But even if Atzmon’s anti-Zionism requires him to be excluded from a festival which features many other musicians, no doubt of differing political positions, we must ask ourselves, “What next?” If musicians are to be banned because of their politics, will the Bible also be banned, because it describes the Jews several times as a “stiff-necked” people?
Karl Dallas, Church Green, Bradford
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