Israeli-born musician Gilad Atzmon, now an antisemitic activist based in the UK. Photo: YouTube.

One of Britain’s most vocal antisemites was handed a humiliating court defeat in London on Monday.

Gilad Atzmon, an Israeli-born jazz musician and conspiracy theorist who refers to himself as a “former Jew,” was forced to deliver an apology in the High Court to Gideon Falter, the chairman of the UK’s Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA). Atzmon will also have to pay undisclosed costs in legal fees and damages that the CAA described as “substantial.”

The CAA sued Atzmon for libel over an article he published in July 2017 entitled “Antisemitism is a Business Plan.” In the piece, Atzmon falsely claimed that “Falter and the CAA obviously fabricate antisemitic incidents” and that “Falter and the CAA need the Jews to be hated so they can collect more and more British taxpayer money.”

Unable to substantiate these and other charges against the CAA as summarized by High Court Justice Matthew Nicklin, Atzmon capitulated. Falter said afterward in a statement that he was “delighted” to have “been able to set the record straight and expose one such antisemitic liar for what he truly is.”

Falter added: “For four years, I have led Campaign Against Antisemitism without earning a penny from it and at enormous personal and financial cost to myself. I am proud that we have built an organization with great integrity to lead the fight against antisemitism in Britain.”

For his part, Atzmon said after the ruling that he “did not (and do not) believe that Mr. Falter was motivated by fraud and I do not think that there is anything I said that suggested it.”

Atzmon continued: “However, I have to accept the ruling that the court made.”

A familiar figure on social media and in far-left circles, Atzmon told a Jewish Twitter user in 2014, “I am not a Jew any more. I indeed despise the Jew in me (whatever is left). I absolutely detest the Jew in you.”

Atzmon’s long-standing insistence that “Zionists” control political discourse in the UK and around the globe has not abated. “Britain is now reduced to an Orwellian dystopia,” he wrote recently. “We may have to accept that our big Zionist brother is constantly watching us. If we want to keep out of trouble, we better self-censor our thoughts and learn to accept the new boundaries of our expression.”