Neve Gordon is one of the most openly anti-Zionist leftist extremists in Israeli academia. A lecturer in political science at Ben Gurion University, itself a den of anti-Zionist radicalism, Gordon routinely attacks Israel in his articles as being a fascist, apartheid regime, one engaged in “state terrorism” against innocent Arabs. His articles have been reprinted on pro-terror Islamofascist and neo-Nazi websites.
Gordon has also devoted much of his time and energy in recent years to promoting Norman Finkelstein, an untenured faculty member at DePaul University best known for his vulgar denunciations of Holocaust survivors as cheats and liars. A review in The New York Times compared Finkelstein’s book The Holocaust Industry to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Harvard’s Alan Dershowitz has lead the campaign to expose Finkelstein as an anti-Semitic fraud and pseudo-scholar. Commentary magazine’s Gabriel Schoenfeld has denounced Finkelstein’s views as “crackpot ideas, some of them mirrored almost verbatim in the propaganda put out by neo-Nazis around the world.”
Gordon endorses Finkelstein’s opinions and theories about the Holocaust and Israel, and his articles praising Finkelstein are featured on countless anti-Semitic websites.
Gordon has a special dislike for Professor Steven Plaut, a professor at the University of Haifa and columnist for The Jewish Press and some other media outlets. Plaut has written many articles exposing the extremism of Israeli leftists, is blunt about what he regards as “Israel’s academic Fifth Column,” and is a contributor to the Israel Academic Monitor watchdog group that exposes political extremism and bias on Israeli campuses.
Several years ago, Plaut published an article denouncing Finkelstein and people like Noam Chomsky as “Jews for Hitler” and criticizing Gordon for his justification of Finkelstein’s attacks on Israel. Gordon was not amused by that.
Shortly thereafter, following some particularly gruesome terrorist attacks, the Israeli army was conducting anti-terror operations in the West Bank. It placed Arafat’s headquarters under siege, demanding that Arafat turn over a number of murderers being hidden in his “offices,” including two who had assassinated Israeli cabinet minister Rehavam Zeevi.
Gordon then illegally infiltrated the PLO’s Ramallah compound with a group of “anarchists” for the explicit purpose of interfering with Israeli soldiers. As reported in Israeli dailies at the time, they served as “human shields” for Arafat and the hidden murderers. Israel’s daily Maariv labeled the “human shield” group as “traitors.” A photograph of Gordon embracing Arafat was carried in Israeli newspapers.
Less than 24 hours later, Plaut denounced the group to which Gordon belonged in this “human shield” infiltration as “Judenrat Wannabes.” That charge formed the basis for Gordon’s libel suit against Plaut. Gordon hired a radical Arab lawyer to represent him and the two went shopping for a court in which a politically sympathetic judge could be expected to be assigned to the case.
While Gordon lives in Jerusalem and Plaut in Haifa, Gordon filed his suit in Nazareth, a bastion of Arab radicalism. Most of the judges on the Nazareth magistrate’s bench are Arabs. Coincidentally or not, the Gordon suit against Plaut was placed on the docket of one of the most openly political and extremist Arab judges there.
In recent years Israel has introduced a policy of “affirmative action” in its public service in the form of appointing women and Arabs (especially women Arabs) who do not necessarily have top qualifications for the positions in question. Nazareth Magistrate’s Court Judge Reem Naddaf had been the court’s registrar before being promoted to a judgeship.
The verdict Naddaf issued is filled with her own political opinions. Completely ignoring the context in which the “Judenrat wannabe” comment was made – that is, Gordon’s illegal “human shield for terrorists” activities – the judge ruled that Plaut’s comments were slanderous. She went on to sing the praises of Arafat as the “legitimate leader of his people” and defend the illegal activities of the “human shields” as “legitimate protest.” But even more incredibly, a judge sitting on the bench in the Jewish state endorsed Holocaust revisionism in her verdict.