Tony Judt, the NYU professor critical of Israel whose appearance Tuesday night at the Polish consulate was abruptly canceled, has had a second appearance derailed after a protest from a Jewish leader.

Mr. Judt was to have spoken on October 17 at the Holocaust Research Center of Manhattan College, an independent Catholic institution in Riverdale. He withdrew late last week, saying the college had put him in “an impossible position” by promising to critics that he would not speak about Israel.

Rabbi Avi Weiss of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale said he had threatened to picket the college if Mr. Judt spoke at the Holocaust center.

“I am a firm believer in First Amendment rights, and would have no problem with Judt speaking at some other forum, as long as an opposing view would be heard,” Rabbi Weiss wrote to the Holocaust center’s leaders. “But having someone who is a State of Israel denier speak at a Holocaust forum is a desecration of the memory of the six million,” he wrote. ~The New York Sun (10/5/06)

So even when Judt intends to speak on a subject related to the Holocaust (about which, as an historian, he might have something interesting to say), his views on Israel somehow enter into it.  But apparently being a “State of Israel denier” (Judt has advocated a “single-state solution” to the Israel-Palestine conflict, thereby denying the ethnic majority basis for a country that is supposed to pride itself on its egalitarian, secular democracy–this and this alone has been the basis for the harrassment directed against him) is practically as bad as being a Holocaust denier and merits rather over-the-top reactions.  His position is allegedly “anti-Jewish,” full stop. 

Now it’s a good thing that the rabbi believes in the First Amendment (provided that there is an opposite point of view on hand to run interference–the marketplace of ideas can only be so vibrant at any one time), or else Tony Judt would really be out of luck.