…Hence the BDS movement, which took an interesting turn yesterday, you may have seen. The Jewish reggae musician Matisyahu was ordered by the organizers of a music festival outside of Valencia, Spain to make a statement of his support for a Balestinian state, and when he refused, they canceled his performance. The local BDS outfit claims he supports “an apartheid state which practices ethnic cleansing.”

I spent the better of a summer in the early 1960s in Valencia so I am not too surprised. Spain like Ireland like Poland has a heavy-duty history of Roman Catholicism and its inveterate Jew-hatred. In all likelihood the local BDS people are not at all religious but fashionably hard left, anti-religious. Still, this has the flavor and the passion and style of their Catholic forebears. How dare they interrogate this musician about his political views, which is what is being asked for here? This demand has the aroma of centuries of Inquisition in which Jews were interrogated over their religious beliefs.

This is a hallmark of a totalitarian mindset…