The funniest thing in the Israeli media this week has got to be the editorial in Haaretz criticizing the decision by Israeli intelligence not to allow Neo-Nazi Norman Finkelstein to enter Israel.  Haaretz thinks he should have been allowed in, you know - all in the name of political pluralism.

Finkelstein lecturing behind new Haaretz banner draped on podium

Finkie is a professional anti-Semite.  I mean that quite literally.  His profession is being an anti-Semite.  He was fired last summer by DePaul University due to his complete absence of academic research publications and has been unemployed ever since, living off you know who.  Finkie churns out "books" devoted to bashing Jews and Israel.  He is best known for his "book," The Holocaust Industry, which claims that Holocaust survivors are frauds, liars, and hoaxsters, who extort Germany.  Finkelstein is widely regarded as a Holocaust Denier, maintains intimate ties with Holocaust Deniers, has repeatedly declared himself a great fan of Holocaust Denier David Irving, and claims Zionists exaggerate the scope of the Holocaust in order to oppress Arabs (he always writes "Six Million" with quote marks).  He also is an infantile vulgar buffoon.  He commissioned a cartoon by Brazilian Neo-Nazi cartoonist Latuff showing Prof. Alan Dershowitz masturbating while watching Lebanese civilians die.  

Finkelstein is also for all intents and purposes a spokesman for the Hezbollah, and was in Lebanon during the war two summers back, cheering on Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israel.  The reason the SHABAK gave him the bum's rush from Israel last week was not because he was anti-Semitic.  No shortage of leftist anti-Semites enter Israel all the time, and some even have tenure at Ben Gurion University (which, unlike DePaul, gives its anti-Semitic pseudo-academics tenure;  BGU's Neve Gordon has devoted much of his career to promoting and praising Finkelstein).   Rather, the bum's rush was because of Finkelstein's ties to Hezbollah terror.  The US a while back denied entry to Tariq Ramadan, a radical Islamist professor in Geneva, for exactly the same reason - namely, proof of ties to terrorists.  There is no entitlement for anti-Semites to enter Israel.  And Finkelstein, who should not be regarded as a Jew at all, would not be able to enter Israel under the Law of Return (Haaretz insistence to the contrary notwithstanding) for the same reason that Meyer Lansky could not.

Now what should we make of Haaretz, the Palestinian daily published in Hebrew (my colleague Arnon Sofer dubs it al-'Ard), suddenly getting all weepy-eyed about political pluralism?  

It would be touching, if not for the fact that Haaretz thinks pluralism is great everywhere except in Haaretz.  The paper is less pluralistic than Pravda was back in the days of Brezhnev, and is less pluralistic than many papers in Arab countries.  At Haaretz there is only a single opinion that may be expressed - the far-leftist Post-Zionist opinion of its editors.

The Haaretz editorial bemoans Finkie getting the bum's rush, and says this is hypocritical because Israel does not prevent "Kahanists" from entering Israel.   Of course, Finkie is a Neo-Nazi with documented ties to terrorists who openly demands that Jews be murdered in escalated terrorism and that Israel be annihilated.  The main sin of the Kahanists is the expressing of opinions of which Haaretz disapproves.  The very fact that Haaretz sees the two matters as morally and politically equivalent tells you volumes about the newspaper.  And the fact that Haaretz has never come out against the silly arbitrary selective denial of freedom of speech in Israel to Kahanists also tells you a great deal about the newspaper's ideas of political pluralism, democracy, and freedom of expression.

Joe Buck for Prime Minister of Israel!
YNET News reports that Hollywood actor Jon Voight will be visiting Sderot children.  We are so used to the air in between the ears of so many Hollywood actors spouting off their "ideas" about politics that we forget that it is actually possible for an actor to be sensitive and intelligent, and Voight is clearly just such!

With the leftist scum calling for total boycotts of Israel, with pressures on Nadine Gordimer and other cultural figures or intellectuals who visit Israel, Voight's visit is a great moral act and his decision to spend some time in Sderot even greater.  Sderot has become Israel's Guernica thanks to the Olmert (and Sharon) government decision to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip of its Jews and convert it into a large rocket base.

From YNET:  “I’m coming to salute, encourage and strengthen the people of Israel on this joyous 60th birthday,” said Voight. “This week is about highlighting Israel as a moral beacon. At a time when its enemies threaten nuclear destruction, Israel heals."  Incidentally, Voight's role in The Odessa File led to the capture and suicide of the film's real-life Nazi villain.

Let's have Joe Buck teach Israel's cowardly politicians how to handle terrorist butt Texas style!

Meanwhile, I think Voight's visit can be of value for other reasons as well.  Voight as Joe Buck might light a Texas fire under the toochasim of certain politicians and generals I could name.  Yuli Tamir could star as one of those aging women who hire Joe Buck in the Tel Aviv staging of "Midnight Cowboy."  And Olmert is really type cast to play Ratso Rizzo.  I really understand George Costanza in that episode of Seinfeld wanting to buy Voight's old used car!

As to those unnatural acts in Voight's film "Deliverance," if I get to choose on whom they get performed in the Israeli film version I am willing to play the banjo!