Norman Finkelstein will speak at Tufts University on March 15, 2011, according to Finkelstein's speaking schedule posted on his own website. The news is not that an anti-Israel speaker would visit a liberal New England academy, since unfortunately this has become standard fare, but that this lecture is being sponsored by a subsidiary of J Street, a lobbying group that continually insists that it's pro-Israel.

The problem with J Street sponsoring this lecture is that Finkelstein himself is an enemy of the state of Israel, having expressed his "solidarity" with Hezbollah, the terrorist organization in Lebanon that recently waged war on the Jewish state. "I have no problem saying that I do want to express solidarity with them, and I am not going to be a coward of a hypocrite about it," Finkelstein said on a Lebanese television station. "They show courage, and they show discipline. I respect that."

Finkelstein has, additionally, defended Hamas on numerous occasions. 

How big an enemy to the state of Israel is Finkelstein? Big enough to be denied entry into Israel by the Shin Bet, Israel's equivalent of the FBI. As Haaretz reported at the time, "The Shin Bet 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.'"

J Street has previously come out as not a friend of Israel. Now it seems that it's busy cementing this reputation.