Both the State and Justice Departments told Cybercast News Service this week that they have no information about whether Mexican authorities have arrested, prosecuted or convicted anyone for the murders of 128 Americans that the State Department reports took place in Mexico between Jan. 1, 2005 and December 31, 2007.

On April 14, the State Department issued an alert, which remains current, warning travelers that the "equivalent to military small-unit combat" was taking place across the southern U.S. border in Mexico.

"Dozens of U.S. citizens were kidnapped and/or murdered in Tijuana in 2007," says the alert. "In some cases, assailants have worn full or partial police or military uniforms and have used vehicles that resemble police vehicles." (See the travel alert

At a May 20 State Department press briefing (see transcript), Cybercast News Service asked State Department Spokesman Sean McCormick how many Americans had in fact been murdered or kidnapped in the border region of Mexico in 2007. The department responded by posting a statement on its Web site and providing a link to its report of "non-natural deaths of Americans" around the world between Jan. 1, 2005 and Dec. 31, 2007. (See statement)

The report, which the State Department said "is based solely on cases reported by American citizens to our posts abroad," listed the deaths by country and where in a particular country the deaths happened. It also gave a cause of death. But it did not list the names, ages, or occupations of the victims, or any information about whether the government of the country where the "non-natural death" of an American had taken place had taken legal action pursuant to that death.

The report indicated that 667 Americans had been killed in Mexico by non-natural causes during the three years covered. A Cybercast News Service analysis of the report determined that 128 of these deaths were listed as either "homicides" (126) or "executions" (2) and that a majority of these murders (68) had taken place in Mexican cities immediately on the U.S.-Mexico border. Another 12 Americans, the report indicated, were murdered in other locations in Mexican states bordering the U.S. (See report)

At a May 27 State Department press briefing (see transcript), Cybercast News Service asked State Department Spokesman Sean McCormick what information the State Department has about "arrests, prosecutions and/or convictions" in the cases of the 128 Americans murdered in Mexico and what the department is "doing to ensure that justice is served for these Americans."

"Right, it's a significant number," McCormick responded. "And certainly, we do follow up on these cases. I'll see if we have statistics on the results of any cases that were brought as a result of charges against individuals who committed crimes against American citizens." But State Department Spokesperson Nicole Thompson later told Cybercast News Service that the department does not track that kind of information.

"Generally, crime and punishment are issues that fall to the U.S. Department of Justice," Thompson said. "As far as I know right now, I can't provide you with a list of what's been prosecuted and what hasn't, but as I said before, that is something that falls to the Department of Justice, not the Department of State."

Justice Department Spokesperson Laura Sweeney, however, told Cybercast News Service that the Department of Justice has no information on murder cases abroad, either.

"That is information that we don't have," said Sweeney, adding that the Mexican government would have jurisdiction over murders of American citizens in that country.

Both Thompson and Sweeney said Mexico's attorney general might be able to provide information about the status of cases involving the murder of American citizens in Mexico. However, Cybercast News Service was unable contact that office.

In addition to the State Department's travel alert for Mexico, the State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs maintains a Web page providing information for Americans considering travel to Mexico. "Low apprehension and conviction rates of criminals contribute to the high crime rate," the page warns. "U.S. citizen victims of crime in Mexico are encouraged to report the incident to the nearest police headquarters and to the nearest U.S. consular office."

The same page warns that Americans have been victimized by Mexican law enforcement officials.

"In some instances, Americans have become victims of harassment, mistreatment and extortion by Mexican law enforcement and other officials," it says. "Mexican authorities have cooperated in investigating such cases, but one must have the officer's name, badge number, and patrol car number to pursue a complaint effectively. Please note this information if you ever have a problem with police or other officials. In addition, tourists should be wary of persons representing themselves as police officers or other officials."

Much of the Religious Left has abandoned its old infatuation with Marxism, having long since moved on to radical environmentalism or performing apologetics for radical Islam. But quaintly, some relics still hang on to the old causes, chief of which is the 50 year love affair with Fidel Castro and his Cuban despotism.

During May 15-20, the Religious Left hosted an interfaith symposium in Cuba called "Spirituality of Resistance, Liberation and Transformation" (http://warc.jalb.de/)." Tragically, the event originally was to have convened in Lebanon. But the "continuing illegal occupation of Palestine by the forces of empire" in the Middle East cut short that possibility, the organizers fretted. Is not Lebanon's strife owing to the Iranian "empire's interference through its Hezbollah surrogates? Of course, the Religious Left is not concerned about that kind of "empire."

Instead, in Cuba's intoxicatingly supportive atmosphere, the Religious Left chatted about how to resist the true evil "empire," i.e. America, and that empire's supportive "destructive spiritualities" on the Religious Right. The event, hosted by the Geneva-based World Council of Churches, the Geneva-based World Alliance of Reformed Churches and the London-based Council for World Mission, apparently thought Cuba, as "liberated" territory, was the best vantage point from which to organize against the "empire."

"The (Cuban) people's suffering is acute because of the United States-imposed blockade and the general forces of empire," explained the communiqué of the religious liberationists. "By 'empire' we mean the complex and dynamic international regime of power anchored by the United States, with its military power, neoliberal globalization, racist and patriarchal ideologies and policies of environmental degradation."

Hopefully Fidel was still sufficiently coherent in his hospital bed to read what must have been glowing Cuban media reports about all the solidarity that the WCC et al were offering his sagging regime. "In spite of these forces of empire and Cubans' relentless suffering, isolation and impoverization, we have been inspired by the ways Cubans persevere in struggle, embodying joy and resistance, dignity and self-esteem," gushed the church bureaucrats from Geneva and elsewhere.

Until 16 years ago, Cuba's communist rulers were themselves an outpost of the Soviet empire, happily performing as surrogates for their masters in Moscow in Africa, Central America and elsewhere where the cause of revolution was ripening. Since that empire's collapse, the isolated Cuban regime has fossilized while its once revolutionary allies quickly chose "neoliberal globalization" over the static theories of Marx and Lenin.

Wonderfully oblivious, the Religious Left confab pretended that the last 20 years of history never happened, and instead focused on the threats posed by the only modern "empire" that ever distressed it: the United States. "We affirm that the problems of empire, amid which justice movements struggle, are not only political problems but spiritual challenges," the communiqué decreed. "Empire spawns its own destructive spiritualities, such as the 'religious right,' and thus it seeks always to co-opt the powers of religion for imperial aims."

Apparently trying to conclude on an upbeat note, the convo of theologians and pastor-activists from the around the world celebrated that "new spiritualities are coming forth to oppose imperial spiritualities." How these "new spiritualities" substantively differ from the old Liberation Theology of 30 and 40 years ago, which conflated the Gospel with Marxist revolution, was not explained by the Religious Left enthusiasts.

"All organized religions have a special challenge of resisting the tactics of division, such as forms of denominationalism and fundamentalism, which often fuel ethnic, racial, nationalist and regional strife, and so strengthen the powers of empire," the WCC et al fretted in Cuba. They were obliquely referring to the reality that Pentecostalism and conservative Roman Catholicism are sweeping the Global South, including Cuba, much to the consternation of the Religious Left, which struggles to find support outside declining Western seminaries or left-wing church bureaucracies.

The WCC et al incorporated some token Hindus and Muslims in their Cuban get together, to showcase the cause's supposedly universal appeal. "Justice movements require a new solidarity among religious groups and all peoples of conscience (secular and religious) and thus we affirm and honour the full multiplicity of spiritualities that enliven such movements," the communiqué enthused. There was a strong focus on "indigenous" peoples," who of course are among the "empire's" chief victims.

An official with the hosting World Alliance of Reformed Churches sagely observed: "Connecting with the struggle, resilience and vision of the Cuban people and the spiritualities of aboriginal peoples and various faith traditions brings fresh impetus in our struggle for justice." Meeting in Cuba was probably a catharsis for many Western ecclesiastics and seminary professors, so otherwise oppressed. Such freedom to speak their minds without fear!

"We are in Cuba, a country that approaches the celebration of 50 years of its revolution," was how the Western prelates opened their communiqué. "Cubans describe the present period as a 'Kairotic' passage, a time of crisis and opportunity." For the Religious Left over the last 40 years, "Kairos" moments are historic tipping points when the revolution appears to be on the cusp of consummation. So there is hope that true Marxism will prevail yet in Cuba! But there are struggles ahead. The religious communiqué bemoaned that Cuba's "earlier revolutionary successes in agrarian reform have been set back by the empire's brutal blockade." But gloriously, the undefeated Cuban proletariat is still pressing forward.

Of course, the Religious Left communiqué denounced the American "empire's worldwide 'war on terror,'" which has "created a virulent form of Islamophobia that compounds other related racisms." The WCC et al insisted that "emergent spiritualities must stand with our Muslim sisters and brothers and work with them for a more just world for all peoples."

The Religious Left communiqué urged "positive values that can energize and focus revolutionary change" and invited leaders of the arts around the world to join in "strengthening the spiritualities that can resist regimes of injustice." Naturally, such oppressive regimes do not include Fidel Castro's communist dictatorship. The targeted regimes that the Religious Left has in mind are the ones that were actually elected by their populations. Apparently such democratic governments are merely tools of "colonization, racism and patriarchy," and puppets of the "empire."

That remnants of the Religious Left are still spouting such anachronisms in even in the year 2008 should not be altogether surprising. That they should do so in Fidel Castro's Cuba, which has become the ossified Disneyworld for unreconstructed Marxists, is perfectly appropriate.

In a presidential race in which unwanted, damaging endorsements seem far more plentiful than endorsements that actually could help, Barack Obama has had the unfortunate distinction of being a magnet for such well-wishers.

The latest unsought praise for the Democratic front-runner came from Fidel Castro, who wrote in a column for Cuba’s Granma newspaper Monday that Obama is “the most progressive candidate to the U.S. presidency.”

Never mind that the column was used to criticize Obama for wanting to uphold the U.S. trade embargo. The Florida GOP seized on it, posting an article about it on their Web site and blasting out an e-mail titled, “Fidel Castro Endorses Obama.”

The reaction underscored the problems Obama continues to face as he talks up his desire to hold high-levels discussions with leaders of diplomatically black-listed countries, without preconditions.

His critics argue that the friendlier foreign policies he’s proposing toward countries like Iran and Cuba are in turn inviting kudos from those countries’ leaders or allies.

“That’s really the question we’re posing to the voters: In an era where we’re actively engaged in fighting the global war on terror, why is he receiving these compliments from groups who are against everything we stand for?” said Florida GOP spokeswoman Katie Gordon.

“He’s agreed to meet with Ahmadinejad with no preconditions. He’s also agreed to meet with Castro. … It hits home for a lot of people here.”

Few can argue a hearty thumbs-up from a Castro is good for poll numbers. Even Castro acknowledged this in his column, writing “Were I to defend (Obama), I would do his adversaries an enormous favor.”

But in calling Obama “progressive,” and praising his “great intelligence” and “debating skills” and “work ethic,” Castro gave those adversaries more fodder.

Here’s a rundown of the latest comments from the world stage that have caused or could cause problems for Obama, if he becomes the Democratic nominee:

– In mid-April, Hamas adviser Ahmed Yousef told WorldNetDaily that “We like Mr. Obama, and we hope that he will win the elections.

“I hope Mr. Obama and the Democrats will change the political discourse,” he said. “I do believe [Obama] is like John Kennedy, a great man with a great principle.”

The John McCain campaign had much fun with the published remark.

A spokesman said the apparent Hamas support is a “legitimate issue” for voters to think about, and even referenced the comments in a fundraising letter. The campaign said Hamas was clearly opening up to Obama because of his willingness to meet with Iran.

McCain proudly stated Hamas would never support him and that he would be “Hamas’ worst nightmare.”

The Obama campaign responded that it already had rejected Hamas’ legitimacy. Obama has said he would not negotiate with Hamas unless the group renounces terrorism, recognizes Israel’s right to exist and holds to other agreements.

– On March 25, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez told foreign correspondents that relations with Washington, D.C, would worsen if McCain were elected.

“Sometimes one says, ‘worse than Bush is impossible,’ but we don’t know,” Chavez said, according to an article in Reuters. “McCain also seems to be a man of war.”

He did not mention either Obama or Hillary Clinton but seemed to indicate that he pined for the days when a Democrat was in the White House.

“Independently of who wins the elections, we are hopeful and it is within our plans to enter an era of better relations with the U.S. government,” he said. “At the least one would hope for the level of relations we had with ex-President Clinton.”

– Also in March, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told Spain’s El Pais newspaper he didn’t believe Obama would be elected, but that he wouldn’t have a problem meeting with him if he were. “For us, there is no difference in who wins,” Ahmadinejad told the newspaper. Tehran-based PressTV reported that Ahmadinejad afterward insisted he “never voiced support for Barack Obama.”

But that didn’t matter in the blogosphere. A headline linking to a posting about the story on Digg.com declared: “Barack Obama Gets Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Coveted Endorsement.”

Obama also has struggled to shake off positive words from the New Black Panther Party and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

Those controversies popped and fizzled during the Democratic primary. But Obama is moving ever closer to clinching the Democratic nomination, and several Democratic strategists have said these controversies, like the one over Obama’s former pastor Jeremiah Wright Jr., would be used against him more vigorously in a general election than a primary.

Gordon said her local party would not hesitate to “push that point” with voters if Obama continues to receive “accolades” from Castro.

But Democratic strategist Dan Gerstein, an Obama supporter, said when it comes to unsought compliments from far away, the damage is negligible.

“There’s a very small universe of people that are going to be swayed by whether someone in Cuba said something nice about him,” he said, adding that those voters probably wouldn’t vote for Obama anyway.

Still, Gerstein said the campaign will need to push back hard against attempts to exploit compliments or endorsements that could speak to his broader judgment.

“In a vacuum, the Wright controversy and some of these other things can take a toll if there’s not a competing and truer narrative the Obama campaign puts out,” he said. “I’m confident they will (fight back).”

Democrats also historically don’t discount the ability of foreign factors to sway domestic elections.

Former Democratic nominee John Kerry privately complained after his 2004 loss to President Bush that the Usama bin Laden video that surfaced days before cost him the election.

In the video, bin Laden told Americans “your security is not in the hands of Kerry of Bush or Al Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands.”

It revived a security issue that Bush tried to make his strong suit.

Obama, of course, is not the only candidate batting back endorsements. McCain and Texas pastor John Hagee recently parted ways after the GOP candidate was dogged for weeks by stories about Hagee’s anti-Catholic remarks. McCain finally rejected Hagee’s endorsement after a report surfaced that he once said the Holocaust was part of God’s plan to expedite the re-establishment of the Jewish state of Israel.

In the early 1980s, the Ohio Division of Travel and Tourism announced a new state tourism slogan: “Ohio, the Heart of It All”. This slogan takes on several new layers of meaning now that international hate sheikh Khalid Yasin has decided to continue his “Islamic Hatred in the Heartland” tour by spending this week delivering his message of hatred, bigotry and violence in mosques all around Central Ohio.

Two weeks ago I reported here at FrontPage that Yasin would be appearing at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, “Islamic Hatred in the Heartland”, sponsored by a local mosque, Masjid at-Taqwa. Pendra Lee Snyder has followed-up on that story by providing a first-hand account of Yasin’s appearance in Dayton, and how Masjid at-Taqwa prevented her from recording his hate-filled comments. Our reporting here at FrontPage even prompted Dayton NBC affiliate WDTN to cover and question Yasin’s visit. And last week John Perazzo exposed how Yasin was the featured speaker at events in April sponsored by the Muslim Student Association at several college campuses.

So it was quite a surprise Saturday morning when the Islamic community in Columbus was informed that Yasin would be touring our city for the next week, paying visits to at least four different mosques affiliated with the Islamic Society of Great Columbus (the local chapter of the Islamic Society of North America) and putting in an appearance on Thursday at The Ohio State University.

Event organizers had presumably delayed announcing Khalid Yasin’s visit until the day of his first appearance to prevent the negative media attention he received in Dayton as a result of the coverage here at FrontPage and JihadWatch.

There is good cause why Yasin’s local supporters don’t want to raise the attention of the Central Ohio community, for fear of them learning about Yasin’s extensive extremist statements reported by the international media.

For example:

* Yasin says that the US government was behind the 9/11 attacks. (“Khalid Yasin: The New Voice of Islam?” Sunday [Australia], October 9, 2005)
* Yasin claims that AIDS was invented at a US government lab and spread by Western governments through UN agencies and Christian missionaries. (“Khalid Yasin: The New Voice of Islam?” Sunday, October 9, 2005)
* Yasin advocates for the death penalty for homosexuality. (“Home Grown”, Sixty Minutes, Channel Nine [Australia], July 24, 2005)
* Yasin justified the terrorist bombings in Bali because of years of alleged Western oppression. (“Khalid Yasin: The New Voice of Islam?” Sunday, October 9, 2005)
* Yasin says that the Quran permits wife-beating and that equal rights for women is a “delusion” and “foolishness”. (cited in “Undercover Mosque”, Dispatches, Channel 4 [UK], January 15, 2007)
* Yasin openly derides the beliefs of Christians and Jews as “filth”. (cited in “Undercover Mosque”, Dispatches, Channel 4 [UK], January 15, 2007)
* Yasin says that Muslims cannot have non-Muslim friends. (“Home Grown”, Sixty Minutes, Channel 9 [Australia], July 24, 2005)
* Yasin rejects any separation between Islam and the state and openly advocates for the reestablishment of the caliphate. (Sunday Nights with John Cleary, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, September 7, 2003; “Khalid Yasin in conversation”, The Religion Report, Australian Broadcasting Corporation National Radio, September 10, 2003)
* Yasin visited Jemaah Islamiah terrorist leader Abu Bakar Bashir in prison, who ordered the Bali bombings. (“Koranic TV next step for radial sheikh”, Sydney Morning Herald, August 20, 2005)
* Yasin has lectured with Hizb-ut-Tahrir hatemonger Omar Bakri Mohammed, who was banned from the UK in 2006.
* Yasin was in Saudi Arabia on 9/11 soliciting support from the Al-Qaeda front Al-Haramain Foundation, which was designated a terrorist organization in 2004 by the US government, to help finance his Islamic Broadcasting Company.

It’s not as if Central Ohio is facing some shortage of catalysts for Islamic radicalization.

In fact, one of the mosques Yasin will be visiting three times this week, Masjid Omar Ibn El Khattab, just north of the Ohio State campus, is derisively known in the area as “Masjid Al-Qaeda”, as it was the home of the largest known Al-Qaeda cell in the United States since 9/11. Two members of the cell, Iyman Faris and Nuraddin Abdi, have already been convicted of support for terrorism (Faris, in fact, was in direct communication with Al-Qaeda operations chief Khalid Sheikh Mohammad), and a third, Christopher Paul, who was the mosque’s martial arts instructor, has been charged and will be coming to trial on terrorism support charges soon. Other cell members have fled the country and/or been deported, and as many as 10 individuals were known to be involved in the Columbus Al-Qaeda cell.

And as FrontPage readers might recall from my “Hometown Jihad” series, international HAMAS/Muslim Brotherhood cleric Salah Sultan was living and operating in my own hometown of Hilliard, Ohio until he fled the country last year after having his US citizenship application rejected (due in no small measure to our own efforts). CBN terrorism correspondent Erick Stakelbeck reported from Columbus last year on the network of Islamic extremists tied to international terrorist groups that had taken root in Central Ohio (“Jihad in Central Ohio”) – a network in which my neighbor Salah Sultan played a leading role.

Recently here at FrontPage, I revealed how a designated terrorist organization had been funding events for the Ohio State Muslim Student Association – the very same group that ran the MSA News list that had served as Osama bin Laden’s media front and a public relations outlet for virtually every Islamic terrorist organization in the world before 9/11.

With this in mind, it’s no surprise that Khalid Yasin has chosen Columbus as the next stop in his “Islamic Hatred in the Heartland” tour. Our city has proved to be fertile ground for Islamic radicalism, and Yasin’s local sponsors no doubt hope to bring in a veritable harvest of hate with his multiple appearances this week. The effects of Khalid Yasin’s tour of Central Ohio will no doubt continue to reverberate through the community for months and years to come.

Those outside our area, however, should not content themselves that such an event could never happen in their own city. Who knows? As Dayton and Columbus have already found out, Khalid Yasin’s next stop on his “Islamic Hatred in the Heartland” tour could be your own hometown.

Whenever the media takes note of the antics of Norman Finkelstein, the former DePaul University professor and anti-Israel activist, a flood of disinformation seems bound to follow. Finkelstein’s arrest in Israel last week was no exception.

The facts of the case are clear. Finkelstein had attempted to enter Israel last Thursday to travel into the West Bank. There he would likely have lent support to Palestinian extremists. Unquestionably, he would have caused trouble. And while Israel generally does not prevent foreign trouble makers from entering the country (a highly naive and short-sighted policy), it made an exception this time: Finkelstein was detained at the Tel Aviv airport upon landing, kept under watch for a few hours, and eventually deported to Amsterdam.

The deportation served as a siren call for all Israel’s critics, both foreign and domestic, to protest this alleged "suppression of academic freedom of an academic critic of Israel." The leftist web sites and the liberal media were immediately filled with reports of how "Professor Finkelstein" was kicked out of Israel for, supposedly, having anti-Israel opinions.

Finkelstein’s supporters, like Peter Kirstein of St. Xavier University, cried "outrage” at Finkelstein’s eviction. Israel’s far-Left also got into the fray. Finkelstein's own web site broadcast his martyrdom in lurid terms.

As usual when Finkelstein is involved, the facts all got lost along the way.

First, Finkelstein is no "professor.” In fact, he never was an academic in any meaningful sense of the word. Finkelstein is a crackpot and an open admirer of Holocaust denier David Irving. Finkelstein claims that all Holocaust survivors are liars, hoaxsters, and thieves, extorting Germany. Finkelstein was fired last year from DePaul University in Chicago because he had no academic publications or achievements at all; he has yet to publish his first academic paper. He is regarded to be a Holocaust denier by the Anti-Defamation League, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and others. For all the whining of his supporters that in DePaul he fell victim to "outside interference" when he was denied tenure, the fact is that most of the outside interference there was actually in Finkelstein’s favor.

Second, Finkelstein was not denied entry into Israel because he holds anti-Israel opinions. Anti-Israel leftists come in and out of Israel all the time. For instance, the Jewish state has long put up with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), whose members enter Israel to engage in violent hooliganism and to assist Palestinian terrorism, sometimes assaulting Israeli police and soldiers in the process.

Some of Israel's own tenured professors, moreover, are even more extreme and anti-Israel than Finkelstein himself. As is clear from any fair-minded reading of Israeli media reports, Finkelstein was denied entry into Israel because he has spent the past few years serving as an all-but-official spokesperson for the Hezbollah terror group and was suspected of wanting to enter Israel for purposes of espionage and activities on its behalf.

Third, entry into Israel is not a universal entitlement. According to the official Israeli statement as reported in Haaretz, Israeli intelligence said Finkelstein "is not permitted to enter Israel because of suspicions involving hostile elements in Lebanon," and because he "did not give a full accounting to interrogators with regard to these suspicions." The last point is especially critical. While still in Israeli captivity, Finkelstein adamantly refused to answer questions about what he was planning to be doing while in the country, as well as who was paying for his trip. Given his refusal to cooperate, it’s difficult to see that Israeli authorities had any alternative but to deport him.

That’s not how Finkelstein sees it, of course. Moments after arriving in Amsterdam, Finkelstein sent out the following message to his fans (spelling and grammar uncorrected):

"Before rumors report my premature death, I was kept in a holding cell for 24 hours and then deported to Amsterdam. It wasn't a Belgian bed and breakfast but it wasn't Auschwitz either (although after six hours of abusive treatement (sic) I did call them "f**king Jewish Nazis," not taken well). It seems that to see Musa and his family again, I'll have to wait until the end of the occupation. I have been been (sic) banned for "at least 10 years." Another incentive to work towards ending the occupation."

Facts notwithstanding, some on the hard-Left were prepared to see Finkelstein as the victim. The so-called "Association for Civil Rights in Israel" or ACRI took the lead in this regard. The ACRI quickly dispatched once of its leaders, a lawyer named Michael Sfard, to serve as attorney for Finkelstein while he was being held at the airport. Sfard was then cited in the media as saying, "A country that starts to fear what its harshest critics write about it is a country that is already behaving in a manner reminiscent of the darkest days of the communist regime."

But Finkelstein is not a substantive "critic" of Israel. By his own admission, he is a supporter of a terrorist group – Hezbollah – that explicitly seeks Israel’s destruction. Contrary to the amen corner loudly commiserating with this disgraced academic, Finkelstein is not a victim of Israeli censorship, but of his own extremism.